If I Can't Have You
by BlindLoveFreeSpirit
Summary: Unbridled.mind, this is for you..and for Haiti
1. Chapter 1

She couldn't quite remember how it got this far with him. Being around him made her want to be a better person, to be herself more than anything and have nothing to hide. The layers of the stronghold that kept them from understanding each other started to break away, and now Nicole could look herself in the mirror, her real self, and say that if things didn't work out this time around...there was absolutely nothing more she could do to resurrect the relationship.

Night after night he held her as tight as he could. He knew how hard it was for her to love blindly, and have her mother's haunting words bring about the constant paranoia and worry, even when she thought the worst was over. She said "I love you" with every exit she made, as if he would forget by the time she returned from the kitchen. But with her anxiety came the disposition to be open, and although he hated how it had to come about...it happened.

_She was there when he woke up out of his induced coma. Her arms folded on her knees and her head hanging low inside them; it was the same solid position she kept when she was a teen, riding the Red Line in Chicago wishing the fortress she made with her arms made her invisible._

_He couldn't speak, not easily anyways, and it hurt too much to move. He just hoped keeping a steady eye on her could make her feel him somehow, as if they were back in Phoenix where she'd always catch his admiring glances and respond with "what the fuck are you looking at?" She started to move now; her shoulders were turning and her back arched until she was sitting straight up, and they were face-to-face. It was evident she had been crying, black lines ran down her cheeks like war paint; there was more of a battle going on inside her than he would ever know. She was still beautiful through the running mascara and sleep deprivation, because vulnerability and an undoubted willingness simply to be was cloaking her emotions and expressing themselves in her eyes. All the words in all the books in all the world couldn't have formed a single sentence for her to say. Her tongue wasn't tied. In fact, it felt way too loose, yet she refrained from saying "I love you" knowing that she wouldn't stop until her words overflowed and he'd drown in her affection. The doctor said the damage wasn't that bad, but his pain was worse. There were lacerations from the glass, minor burns on his neck and back, and being propelled through the windshield by the explosion, he broke his fall by breaking his arm and crushing his rib cage. But it wasn't the worst that could have happened. Death was the major factor, along with burns to the degree of no hope of tissue recovery, covering his entire body and stripping his face of its perfection until he wished he was dead._

_He coughed subtly, but still made her heart pound in her chest. Seeing her reaction he read everything there was to be read in her face and beyond. "Stop blaming yourself." He croaked, soft enough to be missed if she wasn't looking at him._

_She was without words again, this time in fear of the attempt to speak and nothing to come out._

_"I'm alive, Nicole."_

_"But you shouldn't be." Her voice cracked from her previous period of silence._

_"It doesn't matter. You of all people know what is is what matters, not what isn't or could've been. And what is, is that I am...still."_

"I told you." Lydia laughed loudly; despite it being 6am she was wide awake hearing what her daughter had stopped by before work to show her. Nicole looked down at the canary diamond, still feeling the moment he slipped the cold metal onto her finger the other night. "That man loves you. _God,_ he loves you so much baby you haven't even experienced the half of it."

"I hope he doesn't regret it."

"Are you kidding me? Since that boy got out the hospital you were there. _Good intentions ain't good enough if you can't keep them when the going gets rough_. All he needed was to see that you were for real, and you proved yourself. It's called unconditional love."

She exhaled and thought back. "I promised myself I'd never get married...stupid huh?"

"You're not getting married baby. You're sharing the rest of your life with your best friend and there's nothing to fear about that. I've been engaged a total _six _times, pregnant for five, I've dated every color of the rainbow: the good, the bad, the ugly, the old, the young, the rich, the piss poor, I've constantly been cheated on, constantly been _the other woman_, I've been gay, I've been straight, undecided, I've used and been used, I've been emotionally prostituted, I've been a thief, a liar, a murderer, Atheist, Catholic, Baptist, seen it all, done it all...but marriage was the only thing I've tried _once _in my life. And that was with your father. I've done everything life had put on my plate to do but I _never_, found real love in any of it...just a cheap thrill, and a headache. What you have with Antonio is so special because he was always there, loving you, waiting for you, loving you _while _he waited for you. I remember the day before the accident, he told me he couldn't imagine a life without thinking about you, without you driving him to drink." Nicole smiled. "You never had to look that far baby, so don't block your blessings."

Nicole knew her mother was right, and used her life as a model of what could have been. On her drive to work she grew an unhealthy addiction to her mother's CD, where "Ain't Got No" by Nina Simone graced her ears countless times, and "Always A Woman" by Billy Joel motivated some serious introspect as the lyrics mirrored her perfectly. Throughout every track she could hear her mother's brash yet melodious voice singing in her ear, like she was a baby again needing to be lulled to sleep. She once told her she never listened to music that didn't reflect, make her forget, or help her remember the events in her life, because her life and those memories were all she had to hold on to.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into another date last night." Jess sighed.

"Actually this is the fifth." Jack replied sarcastically, following her off the elevator.

"Oh whatever. I just felt sorry for you is all."

"Ah, but you were sober." Jack smiled. "That's what really counts."

"Smart remarks like those aren't gonna get you anywhere." Jess walked over to the coffee machine. "Now, don't mistake my habit for kindness." She handed Jack a cup of coffee.

"Then what should I take it as?

"Take it as a 'Nicole's not here' coffee, not a 'Jack I want to take you home with me' coffee. "

"You have successfully mastered the mind of Jack." He said holding the brim of the cup to his lips.

Jess rolled her eyes and walked to the doorway.

"Hey." Nicole greeted, almost bumping into Jess as she tried to escape Jack.

"Oh hey. You seem pretty happy, what happened to you?"

Nicole flexed her eyebrows and squeezed by Jess.

"Wa-wa-wait." Jess followed her back to the coffee machine, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Nicole laughed.

"That..that look!"

"What look?"

"The one you just gave me!"

"Jess I give you that look all the time."

"Yeah but not after I asked you what happened to you the other night which obviously had to be spent with Antonio, right?"

"Jess, it's nothing."

"A little too late for a turning point." Jess replied.

Jack pulled up his chair and listened in attentively.

"You really wanna know?" Nicole asked secretively, seeing how eager Jack was looking in the corner of her eye.

"Of course!" Jess replied.

"We had sex..._everywhere_. The couch, the table, the floor. Ugh, it was amazing." Nicole said nonchalantly, then went on to pour her cup.

"Whoa!" Jack coughed, choking on his coffee. Nicole and Jess looked back at him. "...Hot?"

"Are you serious?" Jess asked, leaning in.

"_Nooo_."

"Wow ha, I thought--"

"The floor was a little hard on my back, we weren't there for long."

"Damn!" They looked at Jack again. "You know, I'm gonna go talk about...guy stuff...somewhere." He nervously started walking backwards towards the door. "Jess I'll harass you later."

Jess still had the puzzled look on her face until Nicole shook her head and laughed. "Relax. It was just a story to get Jack out of here."

Jess couldn't help the burst of laughter coming out of her mouth. They both grabbed their coffee and sat at the tall table.

"So." Jess began taking a sip, "What's really got that smile on your face."

Nicole took her usual deep breath before she started to talk about herself. But this one ended in a smile.

"Antonio." She said.

Jess rolled her eyes and giggled, "Figures."

"Jess he is _so _good to me. I just, can't believe I didn't see it sooner."

They both smiled at each other like some kind of secret language.

"You know last night, we sat in bed and just _talked_. About everything, about nothing. I think it was the most productive time I've spent with him...ever."

"Are you happy?" Jess asked, knowing the answer was going to be a definite--

"Yes." Nicole replied with a smile, "So happy, in fact, that I'm marrying him. For real this time." Jess swooned over Nicole's ring and hugged her. "He's everything I never wanted Jess...and that turned out to be everything I always needed."

"I'm so happy for you--"

"Ladies." Pollock stood at the doorway.

"This is _really _beautiful Jess, I'm sure your mom will love it." Nicole twisted the ring off her finger and handed it to Jess who immediately went along with her. "Good morning Sir."

"Good morning." It was too early in the day for him to put enough energy into being suspicious without cause, so he just pulled himself to the counter of coffee machine like a zombie.

"Are you okay Sir?" Jess asked.

"Yes, very peach-esque. Why do you ask?"

"Well, we never see you in here."

"..Just because you can't see God, does it stop him from existing?"

"..Sorry I asked." Jess conceded, knowing of all people and things he would compare himself to God before something as inanimate as wind.

"Scott?"

"Yes Sir?"

"I'll be expecting my invitation via mail. Everything on my desk gets shredded." Pollock walked away, stirring his black coffee casually and yawning.

Jess cautiously slid the ring across the table to Nicole, a sympathetic look on her face on the brink of laughter. "Well, at least you're still alive."

"True, but of course that wasn't the real Pollock. He checks in around 9."

* * *

It feels good to put something you've put so much love and time into in the open. I've been thinking about this concept for a while and it took so long for me to mesh my many ideas and evolve them into a more complex perception. And sometimes I still don't know where I'm going. Well, more to come soon. School takes up a lot of my time right now so maybe I won't be as prompt, but I do hope to be just as proficient. So keep an eye out. Love to all.


	2. Chapter 2

"Scott." His loud snap caught her attention.

"Oh...yeah?"

"Did you hear a word I said?"

"...Umm.." It felt like high school all over, when her monotone calculus teacher would call on her for answers knowing she didn't do her homework.

"I think that ring is constricting the blood circulation to your brain." He handed her the folder, but didn't let go until she heard what he had to say: "You're slipping."

"Sorry sir."

"I wish it was that simple Scott. As I was saying, the boyfriend is in interrogations. Work your black magic, as in malevolent powers. Now."

The buzzer sounded and the man's head lifted, followed by a stupid smile. Nicole paced in front of him and only his eyes followed her, like an overpriced and overrated portrait of a criminal hanging on the wall. She fondled the Tiger's Eye at the end of her necklace, the sound of her Michael Kors tapping the floor steadily and her eyes roaming everywhere but his direction.

"Don't those pigs pay you to talk to me?" He asked breaking the silence.

"Yes, they do. And what do those hustlers on the street pay _you _to do? I'm sure one of your disappearing acts included a wallet, not a woman, Mr.West." She finally sat down across from him.

"Mmm, that _voice_. Phone sex with you must be amazing.--"

"_Mr.West_."

"Ooh say it again." She fixed her mouth to respond but knew better. He leaned back in his chair and laughed. "You believe in magic Agent?" His attempt to turn the tables only succeeded because of her curiosity.

"I believe in _facts_, because facts need no explanation."

"...All it takes, is a little imagination, and trust in the magician."

"You're a thug in designer clothes. No one trusts you; you can't even trust yourself."

He pulled his swivel chair closer and leaned forward across the cold table. "Come on, you can't fool me. Looking at you, I know you've got a little hood in you too."

In lightening speed Nicole whipped out her gun and his heart ran a marathon. "You jumped." She tucked the gun back in her pants. "Now where I come from, your brains would've been all over that nice suit of yours for that...Armani?"

"...What do you want to know?" He caved.

"How does a girl like her get mixed up with a guy like you?"

"We were in love."

"Funny."

"I'm serious."

"Where'd you meet?"

"At a friend's house."

"And who do you know that she'd even be associated with? This girl has had straight A's ever since she started grade school, hasn't even had a parking ticket, and you mean to tell me you hang around the same people?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Where's Danielle Mr.West. You're 'girlfriend', or should I say _property_."

"I don't know."

"You're lying."

"I have nothing to hide. What about you?" He searched her body with his eyes for leverage. He came across her fingers. "You married?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"I told you I didn't know. Now can you answer my question please?"

"..._No_, I'm not married."

"Then that pretty ring's just for show?"

"What ring?" Nicole asked, forgetting herself that she had one.

"That's right, _what _ring?" Nicole looked down at her fingers, and without words, kicked the 160 pound table into his chest like it was nothing, sending him flying backwards. She could hear the air escape from his lungs as he hit the wall and the table followed.

"Give me the ring."

"The ring or the girl, I can't do both." He strained to reply.

Nicole yanked the table back and charged at him, grabbing him by his jacket and pinned him against the wall. "You think I give a shit whether you do time or not? I don't. But keep fucking with me, and I'll make it my business that you serve a nice long sentence behind bars where you can become someone elses' bitch besides the dummies you work for. But your punk ass is too damn stupid to see they already dimed you out."

"That's not true--"

Nicole shoved her elbow deeper into his throat. "They sang like the Harlem Boy's Choir. You get paid to do the dirty work while they get blown by your not-so-innocent and eager girlfriend, yet, you're the only one I see in here."

Jess and Jack looked on from the two-way mirror, taking mental notes and admiring Nicole's tenacity.

"Wow, she's like, Vin Diesel in heels. Except she'd look way hotter in that leather skirt than he did." Jack watched Nicole in awe.

Pollock maneuvered in the door silently. "Did she crack it yet?" He asked, folding his arms.

"His alibi or his bones?" Jack added, seeing her twisting the man's arm.

"One frequently follows the other." Pollock sighed at how offhanded he had become with Nicole's behavior day by day. "When this bloodbath is over, I want a lead. Mastriani, follow Scott. Burgess, cover the parents."

The buzzer went off and Nicole came in gently placing her ring back on her finger. "Takoma Park."

"How'd you do that?" Jack asked in amazement.

"Lying my ass off. Let's go."

Jess began to wonder what things would be like when Nicole got married; she wondered if she would change, and who would be to blame for it. There was no doubt that she supported her, but there was an acute yet rational selfishness to her questioning. The ride to Maryland was silent; when Jess reached for the radio knob Nicole made an opposing sound. Just silence, with the exception of the tires rolling along the pavement. Jess knew something was wrong, but whatever it was didn't make Nicole angry, it made her think. The deep look was plastered on her face as she was honked at for driving too slow and not doing anything about it. Jess stuck her hand out the window and waved them around.

"Nicole, why don't I drive?"

"I can't do it Jess."

"..Do what?"

"I, don't know yet. But I can't do _nothing_. I have to do something, or not do it."

"I'm lost."

"Well, I'm lost too.--" The car jolted forward impacted by the finder of a black Camry. 'What the?" Nicole swung the door open and the man was already outside the car complaining over a scratch. "What the hell is your problem?!"

"Oh I'm the one with the problem? You were going thirty in a passing lane and it's _my _problem."

"Yes! If you hadn't have been _tailgating _I'm sure you could've avoided the pretty ticket you're going to get for rear-ending a federal car."

"Nicole, come on, we can let it go."

"_No_, we can't Jess."

"Wait...Nicole?" He looked at her for a moment, squinting until a smile came over his chiseled face. "_Legs_?"

She responded with the same look. "Byron?"

"Damn baby I haven't seen you since high school!" They hugged and he practically lifted her off the ground.

"You're still strong."

"You're still crazy as hell. What have you been up to, it's been years!"

"You know me, working."

"_..Getting engaged_." Jess added louder than she thought.

"Thank you Jess." Her tone was all but thankful.

"Quit lying. Legs you told me you'd never--"

"I, wasn't ready when you asked me By. We were too young."

"Well, I always knew you'd make a beautiful bride...for someone." His eyes sparkled still.

"I'm sorry to interrupt _but, _Takoma Park. There's a girl..._missing_." Jess' irritating reminder was followed by tapping her hand against the hood of the car.

"I guess you got to go."

"Looks that way."

"Well, we should get together. Real soon."

She smiled at the boyish charm he had yet to lose. "I'll look you up."

"I don't think you mean that."

"Did I ever?"

They laughed. "No. I learn from my mistakes." He pulled out a card from his jacket pocket and a pen. "What's your number?"

"Nic--"

"Jess. I am coming."

"Is she your..fiance?" Byron's question was followed by a provoking smile and wishful thinking.

"If she was, you'd be the reason."

"Still a smart ass," he yelled after her as she got in the car. "And you didn't give me your number!"

It was obvious his staying home was only for his own personal enjoyment, as when she came home he made love to her as if he had all the energy in the world. He wanted her to _feel _how much he appreciated her being there, when he didn't have the strength to raise his arm to hug her, when she loved him with no questions asked. His kisses were still decadent in that sweet coolness of the evening, remaining her obsession and sending her into a sugar rush. Her sex was his kryptonite, executed with consummate skill as if she was born to set his soul in white flames. For Nicole, wearing his ring only made it that much sweeter, that much longer-lasting and purposed. She felt loved and needed, as if his heart was hers and the moment that she let go, he wouldn't be able to live.

"What do I taste like?" She smiled, watching his fascination with kissing the birthmark on her inner thigh.

"...Like honey." He whispered, his warm words on her skin.

"And how good is that?" She asked, more so making fun of the annoying yogurt commercial he hated so much than trying to get intimate.

"Five-weeks-off-from-Pollock good." He said, kissing his way up her stomach.

"Not-having-to-hear-my-mother-talk-about-pretty-haired-babies-and-a-vacation-house-in-Hawaii good."

"Going-to-the-prom-with-your-ex-bestfriend's-ex good."

"...I never went to my prom."

He looked up, "...Really?"

"Yeah. I spent my senior year waitressing at a bar in Chicago to put Kelly through college...before she met Benny and decided not to go."

He watched her zone off to a place he knew she'd come back ranting from. "Hey." He snapped her out of it. "You never told me how work was."

"That's because you get your own sick secondhand pleasure out of hearing about it." He laughed. "The usual: coming in late, getting yelled at, getting apologized to so he wouldn't look sexist in front of the new secretary, getting yelled at some more, a solved case, a serious headache, a craving for anything with ice cream on top, and coming home to someone as great as you." She brought his lips to hers, caressing his sensitive ears because she knew what it did to him.

"I take it he knows." He laughed.

"Ya."

"Well, what he say?"

"Nothing, and that's enough to scare me. But I know he wants me or you--or both of us--gone."

"...And?"

"_And_? And I'm not going to let him do that, we can fight this."

Antonio laughed to her dismay. "Why fight it?"

"Because I don't want you to have to make that sacrifice Antonio."

"That's the problem: you think that what I'm willing to do is sacrificial and it's not. There's no fault or penalty; I'm choosing us. For me it's that simple, always has been."

"...I don't think I'm ready for you to leave."

"...Someone's got to." Like a warm breeze his words were whispered against her neck, making her despise yet yearn for him to say it again. She hated that: his way of waiting for her response, certain she was unable to.

_"Take all the time you need." He didn't mean it, not as he drummed his fingers on the table. All her life she had taught herself to expect the unexpected so she needn't be surprised. But this possibility was the furthest from her mind._

_"You don't mean that." She sighed. "You don't want to marry me."_

_"Yes, I do." He laughed._

_"Agent Cortez--"_

_"Formality." Antonio put the ring back in his pocket. "So now I'm back at square one with you? Nicole we've been--"_

_"Screwing." Her blatant response wasn't so shocking to him. "Look, I'm the girl you take to football games with your guy friends because she can curse just as much as you do. I'm the girl you break the rules with, the girl you can't tame with good intentions Antonio...not the girl you marry."_


	3. Chapter 3

"Damn. That man could stick his pen in my trachea anytime." Lydia said, watching the new love interest on Grey's Anatomy charge in and perform a tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. "He's gonna be your new daddy, I swear. Look at those eyes."

Nicole laughed. "I thought you were into Mc. Dreamy?"

"That's until Mc. FreakMe came along."

Watching Grey's with her mother she found herself in the confused and bewildered Meredith Grey. Antonio was her Derek: the perfect man who fell for the troubled damsel and all her problems. Where their men had doubts, Meredith had built her house of glowing candles, and Nicole had accepted Antonio's proposal and taken a resignation into consideration. Where they had made sacrifices, their men were waiting for that one crystallizing moment that dotted the I's and crossed the T's in "commitment".

She cut off the television and gave her daughter the undivided attention she had come for. "Now, what are you gonna do?"

"..If I knew, I wouldn't need you and your mother's intuition."

Lydia leaned back in her leopard print armchair, legs crossed while smoking her cigarette. She had a feline prowess about her, although her symbolic mane was tamed with two grueling hours under the flat iron; something she hadn't done since her grandmother burned her at eight years old. She still carried the mark on her neck.

Watching her in that moment, Nicole knew whom she took after: her timeless mother, the Countess of Cool who revealed only what she wanted to be seen. "Nikki," she sighed, "it's like life or death, except you live either way. And one of those lives you live miserably."

"How profound."

"I'm serious. You have to think about this kind of thing. But if you take too long, he'll make the decision for you, and it won't end so good."

"It's easy for him to say, but why does it have to be so complicated for me?"

"Because you want it to be baby. We're women: when things are too simplistic for us...we over think, whereas men don't think at all. They know what they want, and we're stuck with that awful curse of looking at that shiny apple, and trying to figure God out." She took one last haul of her Marlboro before stumping it out in the ashtray. "Your heart, and your instinct, are on two different pages. It's easy to act out of impulse, going on any whim of emotion and hope you're onto something. But when you have to place yourself beyond your mind, and use your _heart_, it's tough; because there's only one answer. And when you find it, you can't doubt it, or just becomes another thing undone in your life."

Lydia left her words in the room and went into the kitchen to cut a slice of her homemade cake.

"Have some. It'll make you feel better." She handed Nicole the plate, licking the knife after scraping the layer of coconut off the top.

"You remembered." Nicole smiled.

"...Remembered what?"

"That I'm allergic to coconut."

"Ha, you never forget the things that make your daughter swell up like a balloon." Lydia pulled out another cigarette from her purse.

Nicole looked up from her plate, hearing the lighter click desperately.

"I know I know," Lydia sighed blowing out smoke. "I'm compulsive: I have to do something slightly self-destructive or I'm not happy."

"You really shouldn't smoke."

"Thank you Mother Theresa." Nicole scoffed at how much she and her mother were alike. "When you look at me like that...you remind me of your father. It's the same look he used to give me when my notes were a little off kilter." She laughed. "He'd say _Dee, you could be the next Ella, but your notes are flatter than day-old beer. _By the time I was five months along, we made a song, just for you."

"...Really?"

"Oh yeah. I wrote the lyrics and he composed it. I wish I could remember, it was really beautiful: the most beautiful thing we ever created together...besides you of course."

Nicole smiled, happy that for once she had good memories of her father to share. It gave her hope that they were really in love, that she wasn't just some mistake made under the influence of fear and alcohol.

"Quick, crack my ribs so I can go home."

Jess smiled at how unenthusiastic Antonio had become with his return. "Oh come on it's not that bad." Her attempt to reason drew a long sigh out of him. "You can't tell me you don't miss this place."

"For the first time in years I saw the sun rise from my bedroom window. I actually ate breakfast and watched daytime television. I got to play basketball with the guys. I had a life to live outside of this place and it felt so good, I didn't even think about being here again."

"What made you come back?"

"Not what, _who_." He sighed straightening the test tubes that were already lined to the same perfection he left them in. "I sort of, promised Nicole that I'd stay until we're married."

"So you guys have come up with a date?" Jess asked, a glimmer of hope and eager to have a reason to shop in her eyes.

"No. And she's never going to decide with an incentive like that. I want to have a family Jess. I want to be at least 75 percent sure I'm going to live to see the next day. I want to be able to come home from work and kiss Nicole because I missed her, and I want her to be able to ask how my day went. And as selfish as that sounds, and as oblivious as Nicole is to it, I know she wants it too. She has to."

Nicole stood over the sink in the locker room, staring at the light blue pills before deciding to swallow them dry. It had become a regular routine since fifteen when she realized being a vulnerable motherless fatherless and hopeless child made her subjected to absolutely anything. What was habitual wasn't easy to do anymore, not with Antonio hovering around her, enduring in the most unconvincing way that watching her on birth control didn't bother him, like she couldn't trust him with their future.

Her cell phone went off and the "None Of Your Business" ringtone let her know it was Kelly before looking at it the caller ID. She contemplated avoiding her, especially after she referred to Antonio as "some guy" she was marrying to compensate for a fucked up past.

She couldn't take the sound anymore. "What." She snapped flipping the phone open.

"Stop screening my calls beotch." Kelly said in their native language.

"Kelly what do you want?"

"Just checking up on you, you know, seeing what you were up to and stuff." _Stuff_. That was a word she used profusely in uncomfortable situations, when she was covering her motives.

"..I'm killing my unborn. Now what do you really want?"

"I want to talk to you."

"...I'm listening."

"I wanted to say I was sorry. I had no right to judge Antonio or your relationship."

"OK..."

"You didn't forgive me."

"I will."

"Will?"

"Will: as in a fixed intent."

"God Nikki, for once in your life could you not be a bitch?"

"I ran into Byron a while ago. You know, my ex-boyfriend from high school who was only on the market for two days before you sank your claws into him?"

"You said you forgave me!"

"And I did."

"Was that before or after you keyed his Chevy?"

"I forgave, that doesn't mean I had to forget. Look, you've said your peace now can I go?"

"Fine."

"Fine."

He knew from her expression that she wasn't in the mood for his satire and hollow threats. Watching her ease into the bullpen while he was in the middle of briefing went unpunished but noted although doing so boiled his blood and curdled the faith that he had rooted in her since day one. Nicole had become like a cancerous growth on him: a danger to keep and a burden to let go of.

"Agent Scott--"

"I'm sorry I'm late. It won't happen again, I swear."

"You know what, I don't care." He laughed. "I honestly don't give a damn anymore Agent so...do what you want because no one can tell you anything, right?" He had a smile on his face before he turned and left his words stagnant in the air like low-lying clouds. It was the same smile that wasn't a smile at all, more like an eerie provocation and a facade that felt all too real.

"I got to talk to him." Nicole said.

Jess laughed. "Are you feeling okay?"

"We need him to be okay with this, right?" She looked at Antonio, hoping he would concur. "Right?"

"I don't need him to be okay with anything. You know I'm only here because you asked me to be--"

"Oh I'm sorry. Mommy did twist your arm didn't she?"

"I'm just saying, I was fine with leaving before being hunted down by some psycho and I'm more than fine to do it now."

"Ugh. What do we have?"

"...Donna Wise, 32, single mother, disappeared this morning around 9."

"Elaborate." Nicole demanded. Antonio shot her a look, but assumed she was still suffering from Pollock's bitter exit.

"OK...the house had been tossed, not so much of a struggle as it could've been clumsiness, and no foreign prints. Good enough?"

"Who do we have in mind?"

"She didn't know many people...she just moved here a couple of weeks ago."

"...So we have no one."

"...I guess."

"Where's the father?"

"Incarcerated." Jess answered, taking some of the heat for Antonio.

"And why is he incarcerated?"

"Assault and battery."

"...On?"

"..Donna."

"When."

"August 06.--Look, Nicole I'm not the enemy."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're shooting back at me like it's my first day here."

"I'm sorry. I'm a little unnerved that's all."

"..Do you want to--"

"I don't need to talk about it because there's nothing to talk about. We all have our off days, and this is one of mine so, doesn't mean I'm crazy, doesn't mean I'm angry, doesn't mean I'm hiding anything...I'm just..._off_. Let me be off." She gave a quick smile and walked away.

"...I'll go." Antonio offered, sparing Jess in return for her doing the same earlier.

"You should. If she's off I'm sure you're the one to turn her on." Jess smiled.

"Ha. Good one."

She was in her office, quickly flinging the pen back and forth between her two fingers. She could feel his presence at the door without looking up from the paperwork she was putting all her energy into not doing. It was an age-old power the both of them possessed since Phoenix: being able to feel the other without physical contact.

"You must have drawn the short straw." She said, flipping the pen back between her writing fingers.

"No. I came to talk, or not talk, whatever."

"Antonio, nothing is wrong. I swear it."

"You don't have to lie to me--"

"Why didn't you say something to him?"

He didn't expect to reach the root of the problem after barely scratching the surface that was her perplexity. "...What?"

"When Pollock got on my case why didn't you say something?"

"..I..didn't know he said something."

"You can't tell the difference between sarcasm and animosity?"

"I'm sorry I...I'll say something."

"I don't want you to say something because I told you to. I want you to say something because you feel I'm endangered."

He laughed inside at how needy she sounded. "I didn't feel you were endangered."

"So if someone pulls out a gun on me--"

"It's a gun! Of course I'd defend you."

"Well, Pollock had a gun too Antonio, a verbal gun, loaded with insults and you let him shoot me."

"Is that what you're mad about?"

"I'm not mad! I'm not...I was upset. I didn't think I was _this _upset though. I could've cared less if you said anything before, I don't know why I feel like such a pussy now."

He laughed out loud this time. "Because a part of marriage is being able to depend on someone else. You want to be sure you can rely on me, and I understand."

"You think I'm crazy."

"No. I think you're fine. And if Pollock ever pulls out a gun on you...any kind of gun...I'll protect you." He flashed the warm smile that always made her melt into a puddle, but he wasn't cruel enough to make her evaporate. With a kiss he dissolved the petty annoyance she had, but only suppressed what she was really feeling. "Now let's save a life."

There was a part of being an agent that no matter how long you've been in the business, or how tough you thought you were, drained you dry of every emotion. Standing over the dead body of Donna Wise while her child was balled up in the corner couldn't have pierced the kevlar any faster and drive its sharp reality into Nicole's heart. It felt like vertigo, where the room was spinning and the cries of the six-year-old girl rang in her ear, screaming for the mother that was no more. It was so unfair: just like that, in one moment, life could change and have you on your knees begging for a second chance. It made Nicole think about the things she took for granted; how she said "no" to her loved ones because she could, and because they'd always be there. At least that's what she thought. She saw the tears running down the girls face and immediately put herself in the same position.

Slowly she bent down until she was eye level with the little girl. "...Hi sweetheart." She said softly, the girl scurried deeper into the corner. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

"H-He said that to me too." She stuttered to the point of hyperventilation.

"Do you want to tell me who 'he' is?"

"..."

Nicole took off her jacket, then her vest, anything that made her resemble the same people zipping up the body bag with her mother inside it. "Can you tell me your name?"

This woman's eyes were soft, not like the man who looked her once over in the corner and continued on his way. "..Raven."

"That's a pretty name." She smiled at her and held out her hand. "I'm Nicole."

Raven looked at her. This woman had pretty hands. Clean hands. Harmless hands. She stretched hers out to her, shaking and dripping with blood. Still she took her hand, and held it tight. "Do you think I'll hurt you?"

"No," Raven shook her head. "Dying hurts," she said, before bursting into tears. "It hurts really bad."

"You're not going to die."

"Uh-huh." Raven uncovered her hand from her stomach, revealing a stab wound.

_Oh my god,_ she said in her head...but not out loud. She couldn't panic. She was her mother's daughter, the introvert who thrived off of composure in the face of fear. Nicole pulled Raven into her arms holding her tightly, cradling her head and rocking her as if she was her own. "It's going to be okay, alright? I promise."

She could feel the sting of Raven's nails digging into her back as she held on to her as the promise she made personified. "Somebody call an ambulance." She yelled. The agents were still, as if she had been talking to herself. She got to her feet with Raven still clinging for life. "Hey?" She called to one of the agents. "Are you deaf? Get her an ambulance!"

"We can't. Whoever stabbed her didn't know she survived. We have to wait until--"

"Bullshit. Call an ambulance."

"I'm sorry Agent Sco--"

Nicole pushed him and everyone else in her way. Jess called for her but she couldn't hear as she ran out the door where Pollock stood out front.

"Agent Scott, back inside. You can't take that child out of the premises it's called kidnapping: what we try to prevent."

"She's been stabbed."

"And she will be helped. We have the roads blocked and--"

"She's not getting helped _fast _enough." Nicole snapped.

"Look, I know why you're doing this. She's not you. For once, put your emotions on the back burner and be an agent. --"

"You mean let her die."

"If you leave, I won't think twice about suspending you."

She looked him in his eyes. "Can't tell me anything, right?" She said, knocking his shoulder and running to her car.

"Agent Scott!"


	4. Chapter 4

It felt weird waking up alone, not having to resort to the bathroom down the hall because Nicole was taking the longest shower known to man, or the instinct to make his Cuban coffee for two people. She was still in bed, no sign of getting up anytime soon although at exactly 5:45am, she found herself sitting up for no reason.

He stood at the doorway straightening his tie and remembering when it was him with the covers over his head and she was the one up scrambling. "Nick." He called, knowing she was awake because she could never sleep with the lights on.

"Hm." She answered.

"I'm leaving."

She dragged her arm from under the covers and put a peace sign in the air.

"..That's it?" He laughed.

The layers of blankets tumbled over and she appeared. "Have an _exceptional _day at work honey."

Ha. Nicole using terms of endearment: a sign of pure sarcasm. He couldn't help but smile though. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it...please."

"So what are you going to do all day?" Antonio asked, hoping to make quick conversation instead of angering her.

"I don't know. Check up on Raven, look for a dress..."

"So you thought of a date then?"

"..Oh, you thought I meant..wedding dress."

"...You don't?"

"...No."

"...Oh."

"But while I'm out I can--"

"No, whenever you're ready." The look in his eyes was unconvincing.

"Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"Because no matter how much I love you and want to marry you..if the decision were mine, I'd never be ready...never."

"So you want me to pick the day."

"You'll have to."

"Okay...next Saturday."

"You've got to be kidding. There's no way to plan a wedding in that amount of time Antonio."

"Fine. The Saturday after next."

"Are you insane?"

"Look, I want to marry you as soon as I can, wherever I can. In front of two or two-hundred people--I don't care. I just want to marry you Nicole."

There was a saccharine silence, one that held her lips shut and her posture upright. He was so sure, so confident. She never thought it was possible for a man to want to spend the rest of his life with _one _woman, mainly because she didn't believe it was possible for herself. Her heart pounded, like it always did, but harder, hard enough to hurt. His deep brown eyes seemed to draw all of the light out of the room and suck her in as if the sciences of gravity were a myth. She thought about her mother and the talk they had. Instinct gave her five ways out on the spot, but her heart, told her to one way to stay.

Her pale knuckles tapped against his door and suddenly she resented it. There was no response, there never was. He liked for his agents to barge in unsuspecting and be reprimanded for bad manners, but she waited until he was annoyed with her knocking.

"Jesus Mastriani." He complained, hanging up the phone from another Director.

"I need to talk to you Sir."

"I'm not psychic."

"...about Nicole." He held his temples at the sound of her name. "I just want you to know that I shouldn't be here. When given the opportunity my decision was to accompany her and--"

"And she didn't give you that luxury Agent. You should be happy."

_She offered Jess a cup of coffee with the handle out, taking the stinging porcelain against her palm as her subtle way to show she wasn't angry with her. It was amazing how tranquil she had become, sipping her tea with a dash of milk and sugar as if coffee in the morning was unheard of in her house. She figured she didn't need it. What for? She was currently suspended and there was no need to be wide awake when she didn't have to be._

_Jess kept eying her, as if any minute she would flip the table on her and choke her to death._

_"I'm fine." Nicole sang, answering the question that stayed in the corner of Jess' mind but leaked from her uncomfortable presence._

_She looked over at Nicole from the brim of her mug, the ghostly steam rising. It was one of the very first times she had ever seen her in her natural element: no makeup, a lazily placed bun and Antonio's football jersey. An apology wasn't in order as far as she was concerned but Jess felt one at the tip of her tongue._

_"Look, Nicole--"_

_"Don't." Her attempt at an explanation was curbed by Nicole's refusal to accept it._

_"I would've went with you."_

_"No, you wouldn't have.--"_

_"You didn't give me a chance."_

_"I couldn't let you do that." Said the same big sister paradigm that slammed the car door shut before Jess could get in.  
_

_"Nicole you don't have to keep protecting me. I'm not afraid to take chances and be on your side--"_

_"I don't want you on my side. I want you on __your side." What instinctively sounded like a self-justifying retort came to Jess' ears lightly; she knew Nicole wasn't that way...not anymore. "When Pollock gave you that ultimatum I knew that you weren't coming because, Jess, you're __not me; you're bound to ethics and handbooks and morality...and I'm barely bound to the golden rule. I act on what I feel with no subjugation or thought to the aftermath because it defines who I am, and I'm not afraid of that. You're more of an agent than I'll ever be because you're everything I'm not. __That's why we're friends. And that's why you still have a job." She murmured the last part._

"But I was going to follow."

"But you didn't."

"I would've."

"But you didn't. Guilty by contemplation is a crime in the Bible but out here in the field it isn't. The truth is, you're here because you chose to be. Just like Agent Scott chose to defy a specific order."

"You're angry with her engagement. I get that. But what I don't get is how you toy with her career like...like you're jealous."

"That's a very impractical and foolish accusation." He leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers over his stomach.

Jess smiled. "You love her."

"Excuse me?"

"You're in love with Nicole Scott."

"Mastriani, do me a favor and shut the door on your way out."

"When she married her job, she married you. And you feel threatened that she might actually give more of a damn about Antonio than she does for being an Agent."

"Stop it."

"You're afraid she'll be happy...that she won't need this place anymore, because you've lived vicariously through her for so long that when she succeeds...you succeed. When she fails you fail and when she goes against you...you feel betrayed, so you try and punish her like an ex-girlfriend who--"

"I said get out!"

"Wow. That was quick." Jack teased, watching her go in and out in under a minute.

"Go away."

"I like it when you're mad. Fiery red-head."

"Can you just, not be a pervert for a minute?"

"Okay okay. Look, there's a such thing as healthy guilt and this isn't it."

"What are you talking about?"

"..Feeling responsible for someone esles' feeling isn't healthy. Especially if that person knows you're not responsible for that feeling."

"English."

"Nicole is suspended alone, because she made her decision alone.--"

"How could you say that?"

"Because it's true."

"She did the right thing, not me."

"You did the right thing for _you_."

For once she had a smile in her eyes when she looked at him. For once, Jack made sense and not a nauseating feeling in her insides.

"So what'd we find?"

"A dead body."

"Micheal's?"

"Ha, I wish it was that easy but no. It was a Kelsey Grimes. She was found on the side of the road in a ditch and, she worked very closely with Micheal at the center."

"You think they're connected?"

"Come on. You're not new."

The room was filled with flowers from her estranged family and neighbors, but she was six. She wasn't interested in them any more than the painted ones hanging from the wall.

There was a lump under the covers, a laughing lump. Nicole sat at the edge of the bed and reached in her bag sighing.

"Well, since that little girl Raven's gone, I guess I have to eat these Twizzlers all by myself."

Raven sat up. "You brought them!"

"I promised you didn't I?" She reached out for the bag but Nicole held it back. "Are you eating?"

"...Yeah..."

"I can always ask Striker."

"Okay I didn't. I don't like the food here."

"Did you try the food?"

"...No."

"Then how do you know?"

"Because it doesn't look good."

"Did you tell your nurse?"

"She said I should eat it."

"She's right."

"Agent Scott, good morning!" Nurse Striker, a chubby and cheery brunette came in with her hot pink scrubs and clipboard of the same blinding color.

"What's the update?" Nicole asked in hopes of the truth.

"She's doing really well and should be out by Friday."

Nicole handed Raven the bag of Twizzlers. "Eat real food please."

"Alright." She smiled, showing the tooth she was missing in the front.

"You promise?" Nicole held out her pinky finger.

"I promise." Raven did the same.

She was suddenly reminded of Kelly. Her sister. The day they promised each other they'd always be sisters. When they cut their palms and made a vow that nothing would tear them apart.

The door creaked open and Raven smiled. "Uncle Byron!"

Nicole turned around and he was just as surprised seeing her. But knowing him, it was hidden behind his classic walk and calm smile. "You again?" She said trying to sound as least bitter as possible. "You're the uncle."

"That's me. Donna was GJ's high school girlfriend, she left Chicago just this year."

"Georgie? Your little brother?"

"Yeah. Since he's not able to care for her, I'm taking custody. So you were the pretty lady who saved her?"

"I took her to be saved, yes."

"Uncle Byron I didn't know you knew Nicole."

"Sure do." He smiled, sitting beside her on the bed. "We go way back don't we?" He touched her knee.

"...Kelly's fine. Just in case you were wondering."

"I knew you were going to hit me with that one sometime."

"I'm just an open book." She brushed the hair from Raven's face. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Nicole wait." Byron followed her outside the door and closed it behind him. "When are we going to talk?"

"Talking will only make it worse. You did what you wanted to do and I did what I had to do. I'm thankful."

"Just, give me a chance to explain. Coffee. You like coffee? We'll get coffee..just for a minute."

She found it in her to smile, then shake her head. "Be good to her." He watched her walk away and was immediately pulled back into the memory of her walking out on him after finding him in bed with Kelly. Fifteen year old Kelly. And even though they weren't together anymore, he ran after her like he always did. This time he just watched. The wedding band on his finger keeping his feet cemented to the floor and his fist beating against his thigh as if his legs went numb. "I loved you!" He yelled, waiting until she reached the end of the hallway where her stare was diluted by distance.

"Good to know!" She yelled back, then proceeded to turn the corner.

"What'd you find."

"There was a contusion on Kelsey's left arm. A tire mark. I traced the pattern.." Antonio pulled out the paper. "It's an arch, a square, and an arch again, but each set apart by three centimeters. But just right here, only two. The rubber must have been reset."

"In my vision I saw a truck but...it's not that literal it's never that literal."

"Well, Cummings had a truck."

"Then we'll check him." Pollock stood at the doorway, his face visible once he stepped into the light like a cliche horror film.

"Mastriani. I'd like to have a word with Agent Cortez."

"Oh, sure."

Once she left the room felt colder, hostile. Then again it always did Pollock was present. He brought his hands behind his back and paced.

"Tell me..what are your plans."

"Well um, I wanted to see if I could pick anything else up from the body--"

"I meant life plans Agent. Where's your head at."

"..Um..I don't know." Antonio dropped eye contact and fiddled with print outs he knew nothing about.

"Yes you do."

"Look, Sir, I know the situation I'm in. And right now, the less ammunition I give you, the better my chance of surviving."

"I don't want to be the bad guy Cortez. I'm not the bad guy."

Antonio was silent, yet responding blatantly in his head.

"She can come back."

He laughed.

"What?"

"No disrespect Sir but, Nicole wouldn't come back just because you gave the O.K. If she left honorably she's going to take her punishment honorably. All three weeks of it."

"Hm. Then I withdraw." He dropped his hands from behind his back and stuck them in his spacious pockets, stopping right by Antonio's ear. "So if I see her, if I hear her, if I _smell _her, anywhere near my Agents and most definitely, my cases...she's gone for good."


	5. Chapter 5

Don't call the morgue, I'm not dead. I've been blocked, shocked, and coldcocked when it came to this chapter. The left hemisphere of my brain was on some surrious stuff and I had o fight through it. With all honesty I really pushed this chapter because I felt over twenty days of waiting was unfair. Well, I'm really going to try to get the next chapter up soon. I've got something for your asses! Ha. I don't know why I said that. See ya.

* * *

The office felt cold and void of any human life. The sound of the hollow space bar had just peaked Jess' list of top ten annoying things. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Antonio's paralyzed finger rhythmically drummed the same key over and over until Jess grunted.

"...Sorry." He apologized. "You okay?"

"Headache. My parents warned me they're coming into town this weekend, probably to criticize my lack of a love life."

"That's all parents, not just yours."

"Ha. _Especially_ mine."

"My mom thought I was gay. That is until she caught me and Krista Harvell 'studying' in the basement."

"Wow. While she was in the house? That's pretty badass."

"What can I say, I'm a rebel."

"It's quiet." Pollock's first words since their arrival that morning surprisingly showed no emotion of satisfaction. "Would anyone care to explain to me why Agent Scott has not reported for duty?"

She walked down 42nd in her waitress outfit. A bra full of tips and a pocket full of cigarettes; typical description of girls her age trying to make a quick dime without getting naked...just showing a little thigh with a side of buffalo wings. The wind that hit her legs felt like needles and she forgot her jacket in his truck. Chicago was _The Windy City_ for sure and she couldn't have hated it more waiting for him...again. He'd swoop her up an hour late and all would be forgotten behind his smile and his I'm sorry baby. After all, he knew her when boys used to chant_ Nicole, Nicole, body like a pole in_ fifth grade before her shape developed, and the same dogs came crawling back panting. Byron called her "Legs", because hers were the driving force of his fetish. Typical characterization for male chauvinists, she hated it at first, but it stuck quickly after three years of track when her coach and teammates gave her the same title.

He tried his best to weasel out of the "friend zone", but being his only "chick friend" she knew how he handled females and didn't want to be next in line. He scared her. Sex scared her. To Nicole it meant being pinned down to the floor by a heavy body while his hand covered her mouth, daring her to make any kind of sound or he'd pull the trigger. But Byron insisted that she try him. He was her first, her _willing_ first, taking what was left of her tainted innocence and made her blossom. She gave the essence of her broken body freely because it was too much of a burden to keep. She wanted him to have it, to protect it because she trusted him. Loving him was easy when he had already opened the floodgate that levied her emotions, her fears, her deepest insecurities and there was nowhere to hide from him. So she wore his promise ring for the vow they made; the vow that they'd always be together and that in ten years, no matter where they were in the world...she'd have his baby. Silly? She knew. And although the couple thought they had it together, behind closed doors the painted smiles were gone and something was unhinged. She wanted out of Chicago and he wanted her stay. He wanted to get married and she..didn't.

"I'm glad you came." Byron pulled out the chair for her to sit.

Nicole pushed it back in and pulled it out herself. "Don't get mushy, I did this for me."

"I ordered for you."

"I'm not hungry--why did you call me?"

"Why did you come?"

"Because I want you out of my life." The tight-faced woman in their peripheral grunted with amusement.

"You used to be a lot more fun, you know that?"

"I also used to think the states were separated by bright red lines until I was seven. Thank God I'm not who I used to be."

"Is that because of him?"

"It's because of life with him in it."

"I'm not here to start anything. I'm married. You're engaged. We're just two adults..talking. There's nothing wrong with that."

With a sigh she tugged on her earlobe, an inherited method of contemplation from her father that she had yet to discover. "Why'd you do it?"

"...Do what?"

"..sleep with my sister...why'd you do it?"

"I wasn't thinking."

"You were messing with her behind my back...weren't you." He rubbed his chin and laughed, refraining from looking at her, as if she was unworthy of his glance. Of the truth in his eyes. "After all these years you still have the balls to lie to me."

"She--"

"came onto you. I know._ I saw_."

"I can't change the past Legs. If I could, all the shit I put you through would be top of the list." He watched her eyes roll. "I called you because I don't want to lose your friendship. Because you cared for my niece and we've gone through too much for it to end like this. I want you in Raven's life. And when I have kids, I want you in their lives too. When I told you you'd always be my girl...I meant it."

"What do we have?"

"A trashed house." Antonio stepped over the broken glass and proceeded to the living room. "Whoever took this guy must have gotten one hell of a fight."

Jess followed closely behind him hopping over the same sparkling puddle. "I can't think of who would want to hurt this guy. I mean he was handsome, nice, generous."

"Jealousy." Pollock interjected. "There's always someone ugly mean and selfish behind guys like him."

"With motives."

"With envy Agent. Sometimes that's enough to do the job."

She had finished another date with Raven that left her eyelids electric blue and her hair in crooked pigtails. She felt just as used up as she looked and no one told her in fear of the same argument, "she needs me". Jess had warned her plenty not to get too close, saying they were both trying to fill a void in their lives that was too deep and too wide. Nicole found herself walking the thin tightrope balancing over the role of sister and mother, praying for no ill winds yet anticipated the fall for mercy's sake. Antonio had too much pride to admit he was envious of a child. Raven had become a staple in Nicole's newly mundane life, placing a strain on the hopes he had for their future when she felt so obligated to a life that didn't belong to her. Her pictures hung from the refrigerator, her laughter stuck to the walls of his mind like fly paper, and seeing Nicole domesticate before his very eyes rendered him nerveless.

He sat at the edge of the bed, staring blankly with no intent of confrontation watching her sort the tiny contraceptives in her palm yet again. She glanced over at him and he looked away. "So a guy walks into a bar..." she started back up the sentence that sounded like the beginning of a bad joke that he had left in midair.

"Yeah, Daniel Fentress."

"Let me guess, no one saw him leave."

"Right."

She grabbed the bridal magazine she had bent the pages to marking where she had left off. _Three-hundred and forty-two pages of overpriced centerpieces and anorexic women in white _she thought_.  
_

"You know, I shouldn't be discussing FBI business with a civilian." He joked.

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Do you want my help or not?"

"Fine. He went to this club alone, supposedly to meet this chick he'd been talking to online."

"She was a no show."

"Right, but the bartender said that after waiting for about an hour, he disappeared in the crowd telling him to watch his drink. He left his wallet and his keys unattended and whether or not he made it home is a mystery but his house is tossed."

"Check the bouncers." Nicole answered with indifference, browsing the pages.

"We did. They're clean."

"Of course because they're the most trustworthy people in the world." There was the signature cynical tone that he hated so much.

"There's no point in running them again."

"Nothing comes in or out of a club that bouncers don't know about or aren't paid to forget. That's why they hire them. Run them again and this time break some bones. A happy ending. Press conference. Case closed."

"Pollock will think it's a waste of time."

"Pollock also thought a few traffic cones were more important than saving a little girl's life." She flipped the page angrily and he heard it rip from the binding.

"He wanted you back Nicole." He found himself trying to convince her for the umpteenth time and she wasn't having it. "And now you're suspension's over and you're ditching work because you know he won't fire you. He can't."

"I'm not ditching, the story is _I'm sick_. And he didn't want me back. He knew he was wrong and tried to reverse the blame with artificial generosity, and I'm supposed to dance and sing 'Mammy' because he thinks he's doing me a favor."

"And you had too much pride to accept."

"Yes. I do." He was thrown off by her honesty. "He's been treating me like the problem child ever since..." she stopped.

"Go on..."

"Nothing." She held her head down and went back to the magazine.

"You can't keep backing off when you actually start to mean what you say. You're not the only one taking hits, but I'm okay with it because I know what I'm fighting for. What about you?"

"Since when did this become about me?"

"It's always been about you! You don't know what to say, you don't know what to do, what to think. You don't know what you want and, I do."

"And what do you want? Is it the four kids? Because I can't promise you that.--"

"You won't even reason."

"You won't accept it!"

"Maybe because you're being selfish."

Her eyebrows popped. "Excuse me?"

"You give your time and energy to who you see fit; who looks like they need it the most and you're putting it in all the wrong places. You get attached and you get your heart broken every time and I have to sit back and watch it happen thinking_ maybe one day she'll learn_, but you don't. So you give and you give and you give and you'll keep on giving until you're drained dry because you're incomplete Nicole."

She didnt know how to react, so she didn't, which proved scarier than if she were to strike a match and set his clothes on fire. _That_, he expected.


	6. Chapter 6

I'm ba-ackkkkkkkkkkk!

* * *

Jess ran around her apartment with good intentions but never seemed to get it as spotless as she knew her mom would want. They were officially "in the area" which meant outside waiting for the red carpet to unfurl. Deciding that there was nothing more she could do to evoke a feeling of togetherness that just wasn't there, she tucked her hair behind her ears like a child and opened the door.

"Thank goodness I thought you were trying to freeze us to death!" Jess' mom Joy stepped inside, taking a flannel scarf from her neck and hanging it on the arm of the couch. When Doug followed behind her in short sleeves Jess didn't know who to believe. After all her mother did seem to overreact more since their father died, and most of it was taken out on her new husband and Doug.

Jess just smiled watching her mother run her finger along the mantle in vain. "Mr. Audry couldn't make it?" She asked, seeing no sluggish shadow behind her mother.

"I can't believe you're still calling him that. It's been three years and he's still trying to prove himself to you."

"He calls me Jesse."

"Your father used to call you the same thing."

"I don't need another father. And personally, I don't think you need another husband..."

Joy shook her head and sighed. "After all these years Jessica, how can you be so judgmental? You didn't lose the love of your life overnight, I did. And you can't tell me you know what that feels like.--"

"Jess! Hey! I saw the coolest shirt the other day." Doug cut into the mother-daughter quarrel instantaneously. Whether it was his ADD kicking in or the instinct of protecting his sister from bringing Colin up, she was grateful to him. "It's says 'I am McLovin'. I have to buy it. It's definitely the one."

"Don't be silly Douglas." Joy scoffed. "Jess I insist you come with us to Fairfax. You're aunt Gina hasn't seen you since you graduated."

"Wish I could, but can't." _Won't....ever._

"Come on Jess. It'll be fun." Doug stepped behind their mother and mouthed _No_.

"Maybe next time."

"You don't mean that. Ever since you've joined the bureau you've been distancing yourself from the people who love you."

Jess didn't know whether to defend her job or her character, or if both went hand-in-hand. Either way she knew it would be an endless battle between the two of them.

Nicole had no explanation for the way she had been acting for the past couple of days, or she didn't want to admit she knew why. There was something about him that made her curious, hungry for the nostalgia he possessed behind his eyes. "Midlife crisis" presented itself too strong a proverb for her case_, _especially since she didn't consider 35 anywhere near "midlife". Not in her life anyways. Byron was a blast from the past that brought songs, places, and names to mind that she thought she had long forgotten and wanted to remember more than anything. Before she knew it coffee turned into lunch, and lunch turned into dinner. Jeans turned into the little black dress in the back of the closet that carried enough meaning for her to question herself.

He smiled, as somewhere the heart inside the cage of his chest trusted her to a fault. Knowing it was a bit draconian to assume what he feared, he smiled. He had met Byron, polite and respectful, despite the awkward anecdotes about how "wild" Nicole was in high school. Whether or not he felt he deserved her two-day phase of warm dissociation and the rolling of her shoulder whenever he touched her, for once in her life she listened to what he had to say though the jagged edge of the knife was caught blindly. As much as he wanted to he couldn't take it back, not when it made such a fossilized impression on her mind that couldn't be eroded by mere words.

"I'll be back no later than nine." Nicole stated with unconscious insouciance.

"You do know we were supposed to meet the wedding planner tonight. Right?"

"_Damn_, I forgot. Sorry." She walked past him and he caught Chanel No.5 on the tip of his sixth sense, picking up on enough subliminal cues to want to toss her ring into fire. "Maybe she can reschedule. You think?"

"...I don't know anymore."

Nicole laughed. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"_I don't know anymore_?"

"Nothing." She gave him an unmoved expression. One that always did the trick for the truth, besides her lips or, the "honey-dipped polygraph" as he called it. "Honest. Go, have a good time."

"What's that? _I love you so much Nicole please don't go_?" He smiled while she stepped closer, resorting to slowly nibbling on his earlobe to avail him.

"..N..Nic." It was a matter of time before a twitch in his leg would start to act up.

"What.." she whispered moving onto his neck. He held her elbows in an attempt to pull her off, but all it ever was was a thought when it felt too good to take any contrary action. "If you ask me to, I'll stay." She said against the will of her curiosity to humor her heart. "Just say it."

He held her face and kissed her with a fierce tenderness that only he was capable of. She could feel the zipper slowly descending down to her back with a strong and enticing hand along her bare skin. "Stay."

After tossing and turning all night Jess found peace, for once, in her own thoughts; she thought about her friends back home, her old car, and her old room that was just the way she left it six years ago. It was when the phantom of Colin roamed into her dreams that shot her eyes open and kept her awake. She contemplated calling Nicole but decided against it remembering the last late night call where it "wasn't a good time". Instead she called Jack with slight remorse.

"Agent Mastriani if this is a booty call..." He waited for his words to be met with a dial tone but she didn't give him the satisfaction. "...What's wrong?"

"I need to talk to you. Well, I want to. Have to-- but not have as in a dying need but have as in last resort."

"We used to talk. Like normal people. You remember that?"

"...I know."

"I don't want you to feel that you can't talk to me Jess. I joke around a lot and it may be hard to understand me but...I _do _care."

She tested the water and was shocked by the inviting warmth. Tired of lounging around the edge she dived in, hoping to have the courage to wade in his vulnerability. "I feel like I'm going nowhere. I'm twenty-six, I have no love life outside of the bureau, no thoughts about my future. I'm miles away from my family and I find myself buying into my mother's guilt trips about being disconnected."

"It's called being an agent." Jack laughed, waiting for her to join in. "We live in the moment. We don't make plans for the future because there's no guarantee we'll live to see it. It's life, and you accept it. And if you can't accept it...you change it."

"...Do you except it?"

"...I tolerate it. I miss my family and friends too. I wish I had a love life past one weekend of hangovers and random underwear stuffed in the couch." Jess smiled. "Only two things can come of being an agent for the FBI: get the job done, or get done in by the job."

"It's been an hour Sir, is there something else I can get you while you wait?"

"My date would be nice." Byron laughed, fiddling with the silverware.

"No word from her?" The waiter asked, looking around before he sat down across from Byron.

"Well it wouldn't exactly be the first time she stood me up. I don't even know if she's standing me up."

"How long have you been married?--I'm on a break." The waiter told an approaching woman with a look of complaint on her face.

"Oh," Byron looked down at his ring. "No, she's not my wife."

"...I know."

Byron started to laugh at the omniscient smile the waiter kept, until it got too creepy to stomach. "No, this isn't what you think. Not that it matters what _you _think, but she's an old girlfriend from high school. I'm married, she's engaged, it's nothing."

"I bet you she says the same thing."

"_What_?"

"In restaurants like these, I see them all the time. We get these real rich white guys, old money, great tippers, treating plastic twenty-three year old interns to some fancy shit she can't even pronounce. It's sad really. But you can trust me, no doubt about it. I won't open this mouth for any amount of money I don't care what they tell you."

"...You know what, I think I'll take the check now."

"Ah, a pushed button. I see. It's fine you only had a water man.--"

"I collect receipts now give me my check dammit."

It was enough for him to feel like an idiot driving home dialing her number until he memorized her voice message word for word.

_Hey Legs, it's me. I don't know what happened to you or, where you are, but call me alright? I'm worried._

When he turned into his driveway he was thrown off by the ajar door letting out the heat more so than the three cop cars outside his home.

"Don't answer it." Antonio responded to the sudden shift in Nicole's eyes and her slowly loosening grip when her cellphone vibrated on the nightstand again.

"Antonio I have t--" He brought her breathing to a complete standstill in one deep stroke. Suddenly she didn't have to do anything. "What if someone needs me?" She said reclaiming her embrace as she arched in response.

"I'll always need you more." He covered her lips with his and brought back a memory to mind that she could never forget..

_It was a strange intuition that opened his eyes once she stepped out of bed, the first time he caught her in the act of leaving. The silhouette of her getting dressed by the moonlit window rolled his eyes. She never stayed til morning, making him feel cheap and used when he woke up to an empty bed that still imprisoned her scent, her memory. It didn't change much because he knew the deal. He had agreed to it: she would be there when he called and he would do the same. No questions. But there was a feeling deep inside his being that he wouldn't be able to do it much longer; the questionable transformation from addressing her as Agent Scott to a more personal 'Nick' was starting to raise eyebrows and he couldn't shake the reality that he was falling head-over-heels for her._

_"Why don't you just stay?" He asked calmly, trying his best not to provoke her defenses._

_"I can't."_

_"You mean you won't."_

_"No, I shouldn't. We can't afford to take this any further than its already gone."_

_"Then why am I still here? Why do I refuse to be with someone else if we're not even together."_

_"I never said you couldn't see other people...I am." She looked away.  
_

_"You're lying."_

_"How would you know?"_

_"I just do."_

_"Even if I was seeing someone, I can't keep doing this. You want strings."_

_"Strings bind. I just want you."_

_"What if you can't have me?"_

_"If I can't have you…then I'll wait."_

_"I meant can't have me as in it's impossible, not a hopeful waiting period."_

_"As long as you're willing, it's not impossible."_

When morning came she suffered from a love hangover that wouldn't sober up. It was a feeling her mother warned her about, the too familiar feeling whose power was abused in the hands of the wrong men.

He was cooking breakfast shirtless and she couldn't resist pressing against his toned back; his body had finally recovered from the accident.

"Thank you." She said, her lips against his shoulder.

"For what?"

"For being patient with me. I know I'm not the easiest woman to be potentially married to."

He turned into her arms and kissed her forhead. "It'll be worth it, you'll see," he said.

Pollock stood in front of the bullpen and for the first time in a long time all three agents were present. He supressed the urge to question Nicole of her whereabouts all those weeks, he knew he couldn't hammer down on her enough to satisfy himself and make up for lost times anyways. Instead he stood there, silent with too much emotion to convey just one.

"How was everyones night?" His question was on the verge of a rhetorical reception until Jess spoke up.

"Um...good. It was good." Jess looked at Antonio and Nicole to follow along so she'd feel like less of a kiss ass.

"Great." Antonio added.

Pollock looked at Nicole, "..and you stranger?"

"...Fine."

"..Good. I'm going to need all my agents in good health if we're going after a case that has a day's lead on us." He clicked the remote and Nicole looked away in disbelief.

"Raven Morrows, daughter of the deceased Donna Wise and the encarcerated Geoffrey Morrows."

"Nicole I'm so sorry." Jess whispered.

"How could I let this happen?"

"Nic, it's not your fault--"

"He called me...six times...six. And I didn't answer."

"Raven disappeared from the home of her uncle Byron Morrows at an undisclosed time." Pollock went on. "Her aunt Vanessa, who was present that night, was found unconscious on the floor when he came home and the child was missing. We have the Morrows in questioning as we speak--Cortez. I want you in there. A confession, a tear, a miracle..bring me something I can use."

"But Sir I have to be in there I can handle this." Antonio and Jess looked over at Nicole, both not surprised for different reasons.

"Agent Scott I am thrilled that you woke up today and thought enough of your job to do it. Believe me, I'm estatic. But this case goes beyond what you can handle. It's about what you _can't_."

"But I can do this!--"

"It isn't enough, Agent Scott," Pollock's voice surged through the room like a current, "that you are still here under my command despite your insubordinate behavior dealing with this child--it isn't enough, that you alone are not being interrogated for your connection to this family, and it isn't enough, that I tolerate your mutinous relatio--"

"Hey!" Pollock's head slowly turned towards the interjected voice where Antonio held an unyielding look. "I can't let you talk to her like that...not in front of me."

"Wow. So it is true." Pollock sighed, massaging his forehead. "Mastriani, you seem to be the only one with some sense today. Get in there."

"You didn't have to do that." Nicole told Antonio as they stood on the other side of the two-way mirror, watching Jess.

"Look, I know you can take it but the fact is you don't have to. I'm putting my two weeks in today."

"Why?"

"Our deal. Remember?" _Damn_.

"Mr. Morrows, Mrs. Morrows, I'm agent Mastriani." Byron kept his arm around his sobbing wife, a tint of navy blue and plum circling her left eye. "If I may ask, what happened to your eye?"

"There's no Ike and Tina business going on okay." She snapped. "They did it. Whoever _they_ are, they did it. And they took my niece."

"Whoever broke into your house the other night."

"Yes--and where's agent Scott? I would _love_ to have a talk with her."

"Baby. Come on you know it's not Nicole's fault--"

"Dammit James get your head out of your ass and stop protecting her! Why don't you tell agent Mastriani where you were last night? Why you weren't home. Hm?"

Nicole put her fist to her mouth and shook her head.

"So where is she? She's watching, isn't she?"

"Nessa please." Byron sighed.

"Please nothing! Look at my eye! Look at it! I was on that floor for two. hours. And if you weren't out chasing some ghost you could've stopped it."

"Do you remember anything from that night?" Jess asked.

"I remember getting knocked out in my own house."

"Did you see any of their faces?"

"Faces? It was one man and yes I saw him clear as day before he knocked me out and took my niece." The door buzzed and Nicole came in, her eyes refused to look on Byron's. "Is that her?" When Byron grew silent Vanessa elbowed his arm. "Is that her?!"

"Mrs. Morrows I'm agent--"

"Nicole Scott yes I know who you are. You're the reason all this happened."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. Look, Mrs. Morrows, we're going to do everything we can to bring Raven back. And I know you won't take my word over a cow's but...I mean it."

"Just so you know...I don't think I can trust you as far as I can throw you."

"Well, I hope you have a good arm."


	7. Chapter 7

"We got him." Antonio said on entrance into Pollock's office. "Dylan Busaris. Vanessa Morrows confirms it was him from the sketch. He also lives about six houses down from the Morrows."

"Daddy like. Where is he now?"

"Waiting for you to make your move."

"Good." Pollock picked up his phone and dialed one button. "2243 Lakeview Drive and await further instruction."

"You're crazy!" Dylan's back bounced off the wall and he fell to the floor.

"What's crazy is that you would even think you could get away with this." Jess said.

"Is this some kind of good cop bad cop shit? Help!" He called out to Nicole who was looking through his CD collection.

_I'd be the bad cop_, she answered his call to herself, certain she was unable to perform her intimidating onus because of the pounding headache and queasy feeling that the walls were closing in.

"Tell us where she is and you walk."

"What are you talking about?!"

"Raven Morrows--where is she?"

"I don't know, what you're talking about!"

"We know where you were last night there's no point in lying."

"The last time I checked I was over 21, thank you."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Let me go and I'll tell you."

"No deal."

"I was at a bar watching the game, Jesus!"

"We have a victim who says otherwise."

"Unless that victim was at the bottom of a Jack Daniels there's no way they saw me anywhere."

"And you're using _that_ as an alibi?" Nicole added, looking at the landscape sized photograph on the wall. "This your family?"

"...Was, my family." He tried to pull away from Jess but failed.

"What happened?"

"Life happened, alright?"

"You're little girl, she looks just like you."

"Her name was Rebbecca. She died of leukemia four years ago. My wife, cancer, three years ago. Now the idea of me drinking all night doesn't seem too shabby does it?"

"So is that why you took Raven? To relive some sick dream of having a family again?" Jess added, throwing him on the couch.

"No! I could never hurt a child it's impossible!"

"I tell you what...we'll put you in custody until you decide to tell us the truth."

"Wait. Custody? I'm not a criminal! Here.." Dylan wrote down a phone number on a stray piece of paper. "This is the number to the bar. You can ask anyone, I was there. I'm always there just...just take it."

Jess cautiously took the wrinkled piece of paper. "There's no way we should trust anything you say."

"Because it's the truth."

"Mr. Busaris," Nicole started up, her eyebrows lowered in casual thought. "Are you ambidextrous?"

He laughed. "Meaning?"

"Are you capable of writing with both your right and left hand."

"No, my left looks like cave writings, why?"

Nicole gave her partner a look she had grown to understand and fear. "...Just a question."

Jess stormed out of is front door and onto the driveway. "There was no reason at all that we shouldn't have taken him out."

"I don't think he hurt Vanessa." Nicole responded calmly.

"His alibi was weak!"

"Then it's not an alibi at all. Whoever pulverized her that night was a lefty; the trajectory was a perfectly targeted jab to the eye, no bruises on the temporal plate, the lateral side of the zygomaticus or any other bone for evidence that the fist took an elliptical path. Plus, any right-handed person in their right mind isn't going to risk their shot with a faulty left-handed punch."

"You know what, you're not as fired up about this case as I thought you would be."

"I am, alright? But acting as crazy as I feel right now isn't going to bring Raven back so..." Nicole looked out and caught the stare of a woman across the street. Her eyes grew in a guilty surprise and she quickly closed the window curtain. "Hey..I'll be back."

"No no no I'm coming with you." Jess insisted, hoping that putting distance between her and Busaris would stop her urge to kill him.

Nicole knocked on the door and it took no longer than ten seconds for it to be opened.

"Hi I'm.."

The woman shook her head. "I don't....say...English." She said with a broken and bruised accent.

"Deutsch?" Jess asked, hoping to put her four years of torture in high school to good use.

"..N..No."

Nicole looked at the mail box where "Gravois" was written beautifully in script. "Bonjour Mme. Gravois, je suis agent Nicole Scott." Jess gave Nicole a surprised look.

"Oui!" The woman laughed. "Je parle français! Enfin quelqu'un en Amérique l'obtient."

"Si je peux demander, faites vous vous souvenez de quelque chose l'incident étrange l'autre nuit à cette maison de l'autre côté?"

"Oui. J'ai entendu des bruits. Beaucoup de bruits."

"Cris perçants?"

"No, rien aiment cela. Bien, il y en avait. Mais il y avait plus hurlant. Combat."

"Avez-vous vu cet homme qui nuit ?" Nicole held up the sketch of Dylan Busaris.

"Je l'ai vu avant. Il vit dans ce voisinage, oui ? Il marche autour du bloc journalier le matin. Mais il n'était pas celui je scie la nuit passée."

"Il y avait quelqu'un d'autre ?"

"Quelqu'un différent. Complètement. Je suis sûr de lui. Il était l'américain africain. Black."

"Merci de votre temps Mme. Gravois."

"C'était mon plaisir."

"What was that all about?" Jess laughed as they got into the car.

"She said she heard noises coming from the Morrow's house that night, like someone was fighting. And she's recognizes Busaris because he walks around the block every morning. But, Dylan wasn't the one she saw last night. She said it was someone completely different. Someone Black anyways."

"So Busaris is telling the truth?"

"More importantly, Vanessa Morrows isn't."

"Wow. I'm impressed."

"How so?"

"You know, the black eye conspiracy, this new-found bilingualism."

"So I took foreign language and osteology through college, sue me."

"Never. I think it's pretty cool."

"I haven't spoke French like that since the Beauvais ordeal in 99'. My partner was Dominique Sharp, that DEA agent from the Bailey case. She hasn't forgave me since for hooking up with this ridiculously hot French agent who worked with us. And come to think of it, he wasn't even worth losing a friend over."

Jess fixed her mouth to respond in encouragement when she was yanked into a vision that vanished within a blink.

"Ok, either I'm on speed or you're losing your touch. What'd you see?"

"Nothing. It was so strange, like there was nothing. I just..I blinked and..there was _nothing _it was...gone."

"Maybe you can get something from talking to Vanessa again, hopefully the truth with a vision on the side."

She folded her arms like a rebellious teenager and stared at her knees. She was like stone that could only be broken by the provocation of a disagreement. A woman still she forced hospitality with a wide open door and glasses of ice tea that Nicole did not accept as her eyebrow popped with a sick pleasure at the offer.

"So," Nicole started up to Vanessa's dismay. "Are we going with mens rea?"

"I didn't, take her." Vanessa snapped.

"We're not saying you did Mrs. Morrows. We're saying you know who did." Jess added.

"I don't, okay?"

"If you're so innocent, why lie?"

"Because that man was a creep. I saw him every morning walking around the block looking into people's cars and trash cans--I figured he'd be an easy target to blame. So sue me."

"We could." Nicole said with conviction. "Your niece's life is at stake, and any piece of information that you hold back from us can put her even more danger, whether you believe it's relevant or not."

"It was a little white lie.--"

"No, it's a crime."

"Oh like you never wanted to hide the truth from the people you _supposedly _love Agent."

"Mrs. Morrows, you were the one last seen with Raven, that makes you a prime suspect in this investigation and if you can't disprove--"

"Marshal Wood." Vanessa erupted with annoyance.

"Relevance?"

"My ex. Alright? Yes, I lied about the lonely bastard down the street but I was only trying to protect my husband. I didn't want him to know about Marshal and definitely didn't want him to know he abused me. He was just my way of revenge and it got out of hand that night--he came over and we just talked. Talking lead to talking about the past and that led to blame and a black eye. When I got up, some crystal was missing and a pendant but that's typical of him. A thief, not a kidnapper."

"Then where does that leave Raven?"

"I don't know!" Her voice cracked and eyes started to water. "Her father's out of jail; he's been out for about a week and he called earlier that night looking for Byron. He wasn't home so he kept bitching about taking Raven to a park or something. I lied and told him she was at my mom's and he got loud and belligerent so I hung up. Other than that, I have nothing."

"I think you're trying to lead us in the wrong direction." Jess confessed.

"And I think it's ironically chauvinistic of you two ladies to accuse me."

"Our assumptions are situational, not sexist." Nicole announced on their behalf.

"The least you could do is question him."

"We could. Or, we could question your piece of man candy first. See where he takes us."

"Fine. What do I have to hide?"

"Nothing that a little concealer can't take care of. Nice eye."

Nicole rose from the couch and Vanessa's words met her at the door. "If you ask me Agent, it's you, who should be questioned."

Jess took hold of her duties and opened the front door as a form of restraint for Nicole. "She's not worth it," she whispered into her shoulder where her friend could hear.

From a mile away much less a layer of glass it was clear who he was and who he _thought _he was; however highly placed that opinion stood. As he patted his left hand on the table just the idea of his presence was enough to make her angry though she knew nothing of him other than what showed on Vanessa's face.

"Whatever they told you. It's not true."

"Vanessa told me you were innocent." Jess laughed.

"Ha, then for once in her life she didn't lie. Now can I know what this is about?"

"The disappearance of six year old Raven Morrows."

"Never heard of her."

"Really? Because she was at the house the night you did your drive by."

"She must be a heavy sleeper."

"You stole from the Morrow's home did you not?"

"Some glasses and a fancy necklace, not a kid. There was no kid to take."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I looked in a room that looked like a child's room but I'm not so desperate as to steal a couple of stuffed animals."

"No one was in there?"

"_No one_, was in there."

Pollock stood on the other side of the mirror wishing they could hear his sarcastic speed-it-up sighs. Antonio eased beside him like a second shadow and he felt his presence.

"Sir, we ran the house for prints, and Wood's is all over the kitchen and the living room."

"And the child's room?"

"Only on the outside knob. As a matter of fact there are no detectable prints but hers inside the room."

"So are you suggesting to me this six year old is Casper by night?"

"No Sir."

"Of course not. Then bring me something I can use. Someone I can torture. Something that doesn't leave me at a goddamn dead-end."

"Jess isn't having any visions, there's no evidence of breaking and entering or a struggle..."

"Then go home. If you want to give up, go home."

"We're not giving up." Antonio's voice softened as he slid the contradicting notice behind his back.

"This morning you were ready to bite my head off, where's that same fight Agent?"

"I..I still have it."

"Then fight for this girl like you would for her. Don't slack off because I'm an insensitive prick. That way....we both have no regrets."


	8. Chapter 8

**Yes. I know. It's been a year practically. I'm so sorry and I cannot say it enough. I'm fighting myself everyday to make time and give the best that I've got. I know what I'm doing with this story although its been tough and still is, but I won't give up on myself, and I hope you guys won't give up on me either. **

**With love, **

**Chapter 8

* * *

**

Antonio knew how Nicole felt about "sneaking" behind her back with her mother. She felt that anything he wanted to know and Lydia had to say was best said in the open where she could hear and fight in turn. It wasn't that she didn't trust her mother, she did, although twenty years and one baby ago her beliefs would have changed. She had a genuine love for Antonio and protected him like one of her own. On occasions he caught himself calling her "Mom" and seeing the smile blossom across her face like springtime. Despite the past, Nicole grew more and more like her mother everyday, where she would retaliate with "we share the same venom, but a different bite."

He didn't speak but she knew what he was there for. Nicole had been busying herself from her too but she learned to take it all in stride. If there was one thing she was certain of it was that their union was that of secret monsters and haunted pasts, yet their love was obvious even when pain became the appositive.

"She loves you." Lydia sighed on top of a sigh. "Don't let her make you think anything different." He couldn't. Not when he sacrificed sanity on a burning altar to be with her, and compromised his neutrality to love harder than he did before.

"I know. It just seems like the closer we are to being married, the farther away she is from me."

"Where the average women has doubt, Nicole gets answers. You know better than anyone that the girl feels guilty for being human; for having feelings, for falling in love or, even being uncertain about things."

"And this case is hitting her hard."

"It's cause she sees herself in those kids, and God help em' if they've seen a hard day in their life. She and I, our past is the only way we feel we exist. So we're partial to our familiar demons because, we're scared of the new ones."

"I just wish she wasn't so stubborn, determined to do everything herself; she'll go to extremes for a life that doesn't even belong to her and..it scares me that she might get that far..._again_."

The contemplation whether or not to surprise her didn't last long. Although it was quite a risk when she was trying to concentrate he slowly moved in, spreading his hands apart to the size of her waist and grabbed her. For a second he forgot about her sharp reflexes as she hurled her elbow around and knocked him in face.

"Ooh, sorry." Jess apologized, while laughing...one of her trademarks. When she saw the face of whom she had damaged she lost all emotion.

Colin rubbed his chin and smiled. "How are you?"

"What are you doing here?"

"It's not a crime to be within ten feet of you is it?" He laughed.

"It can be if I put pen to paper." Her quaint smile couldn't suffice. The tension was so thick in the air it made it harder to breathe. It took a month for her knight in shining armor to ride back valiantly on his steed, but the damsel he once knew was no longer in distress.

"You look good."

She laughed, rubbing her clammy hand on the back of her neck. "It's as if you don't know me at all."

"I didn't want to ask."

"It's nothing."

"I'll be the judge of that. Are you free tonight?"

_Yes!_ "No I, I have a lot to do--_will _always have a lot to do."

"You're lying."

"How would you know?"

"_Only a mountain can know the core of another_."

"Are you saying that you know me Agent McNeil?" She started to smile, feeling the presence she had miss showering her with that same charm.

"I'm saying that I'll pick you up at 8:57."

"That's an awfully particular time, and I didn't say yes."

"Only a mountain Agent."

The lake behind the Morrow's home glimmered and shined like a rippling mirror of retrospect. Due to recent events, the last thing Nicole wanted to do was remember. It felt like high school again, skipping class to be with him, procrastinating on her studies to defile the trust his parents built in them with their empty home. Now when he looked at her, he saw someone completely different; she had evolved into a new creature.

"Before you say anything, I'm sorry." Byron turned his head and noticed her purposefully looking in another direction. "Although, I don't know why I'm apologizing. Somehow you've always managed to make me feel guilty for things without saying a word--"

"I never asked for an apology."

"But you want one."

"Since when did you care?"

"What's up with you?"

"You don't even have the guts to talk to me in front of your wife--you wouldn't even look at me if she was in the same room. So you sneak me through the back door like I'm_ the other woman_."

"She doesn't understand."

Nicole laughed. "I can't believe you're _still _playing the same tired game."

"Would you look at me?" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, then slowly came to the realization that she despised being handled like a troublesome child. It was in her eyes now, causing his grip to loosen and another apology to fall from his hesitant lips. "..I'm sorry."

"Do you want to know why I said 'no' to you? It was more than you sleeping with my under-aged sister, believe it or not, it was because you thought too much about yourself. _She's leaving Chicago because of me. She's not talking to me--I must have done something wrong. She won't marry me because of something I said_-- it's not always about _you_. And you don't have the ability to make me feel or do anything! Sometimes it's about me and I don't need your ego to take the blame for my decisions."

"I don't get it. One minute we're the best of friends and the next you're like this. You don't have to hide from me, I'm not one of your mom's old boyfriends who--" Usually he could hear the boiling of her blood before she decided to strike, but there was no air of silence for him to anticipate the callous slap. It felt hard enough to dislocate his jaw, but he could feel her holding back.

"Legs--"

"It's Agent Scott. I worked hard for this badge and any other name is disrespect."

"It was a love language."

"So was Latin. But it's dead."

He smiled through his previously cold expression while hers made an opaque mask marked with warpaint. "Do you know why I'm here Byron?"

"Because I asked you to be."

"There you go again making it all about you. This is about your niece, and if you don't have anything significant to help me further this investigation then I'm leaving."

"Fine," He slid his hand into is pocket and stopped. "I talked to my brother's parole officer, apparently he's doing fine for himself in Maryland, checks in everyday, has a job, a girlfriend. So I called him, I wanted to tell him about Raven but he sounded so excited about life again. I didn't want to hurt him"

"You'll only hurt him more by keeping this from him."

"What if this turns out badly? I can't explain that."

"It won't."

"That's a double standard; you're just saying it because you're involved. That face comes with two sides and so do the results Nikki."

"When I try and be a friend to you, you call me a hypocrite. What do you want from me?"

"I want you to be honest with me! It's been days, your friend hasn't been getting any visions and I don't know what else to do." He took his hand from his pocket now. "I came out here this morning to clear my head of some things, and I found this.." It was a bracelet, one Nicole distinctly remembered hanging loosely from a child's wrist.

"Where'd you get that?"

"I want every inch of the perimeter searched; in and around the lake. Don't come back unless you've got something." Pollock looked through his shades at the agents moving about at his words, to the hound dog trying to pick up a scent from an article of Raven's. The feeling wasn't satisfaction or ambitious, nor was it one of closure or pride. For once he did not wish to succeed if it meant finding the child's lifeless body; he felt that evidence would prove a failure within itself.

"Antonio said the lake's man-made, but there's no telling how deep it is." Jess approached Pollock with a blueprint of the area given reluctantly by the city.

"43.7 feet deep, a mile across."

"How long do you think it will take recovery to hit bottom?"

"Reaching the bottom isn't the issue, it's dealing with what we find once we get there that worries me."

"Sir, about the visions--I've tried everything I could to make connections--"

"For the first time in my life I don't want you to blame yourself. Everyone here was an agent before they became 'special'; we're trained to do this job even if it means becoming somebody better, worse, or indifferent than who we are."

Jess felt the burning torch inches within her reach, but the hologram only gave off a wise word. Pollock's jaw tightened as he gritted his teeth, refusing to remove his sunglasses even when the sun began to set. "Your friend...she's hovering."

Nicole paced back and forth behind the stragglers of the dive team gearing up. "We're losing light." She sighed loud enough for them to hear.

"We have our own." One of the men answered laughing.

"You're not searching for a pendant some old lady dropped at the bottom of the ocean..it's a human being, with a family that cares about them."

"Agent Scott," he continued laughing zipping up the suit that almost caught his chest hair. "Trust me, they're not going anywhere."

If it wasn't for Jess' hand suddenly on her arm she would've reacted, instead she tamed herself knowing that her sensitivity came from a deeper place that she could only blame herself for. "Nicole I think the divers have got it from here."

"If I had half the mind I'd go in there myself."

"Ha, but you're not crazy."

"It wouldn't be the first time." Jess waited for her partner's usual elaboration but it never came. "Let's move, this water's giving me the creeps. Anyways, I felt like I haven't seen you in forever, what's been going on?"

"The phantom appeared."

"Uh oh. Its been a month. What's his deal?"

"He wants to see me." Nicole stopped walking to give Jess her full fledged disapproval. "It's not like that."

"I don't want to have to see you get hurt again Jess."

"I won't. Let me know what's going on, every second."

"You got it."

By nightfall a chill had entered the atmosphere blowing in from the water and Jess was long gone. Nicole still waited, watching Byron and his wife hold each other as they talked with the police. They were good actors, smiling and an overbearing generosity that came across as fake as it looked. There was no denying that everyone was frustrated at how long the case had dragged on, like facing a recurring nightmare with eyes wide open and a fear that lingered. Hope became like a thin layer of mist: visible, as it was on everyone's face, yet the reality settled in that it was impossible to grasp with the promise that it would still be there tomorrow.


	9. Chapter 9

**PART 1**

* * *

Nicole awoke to the most blinding light that seemed too white to be real. Her eyes roamed before she could move and the sickening calm about her felt induced. Her mother's scent was in the air mingling with the sterilized atmosphere but she wasn't there. She looked down at the tubes that branched from her body like vines, the chilling wires that stuck on her chest and arms like leeches. She ripped them off and a piercing sound filled the room followed by a hurried doctor.

"Agent Scott you can't do that!" The salt and peppered man tried in vain to reason.

"What the hell is all this?" Nicole snapped, finding more wires to pull off of her.

"You experienced a vasolvagal syncope. It's very common, we're just keeping tabs on you given your history."

"Wanna try that again?"

"A malaise in the vagus nerve. It occurs when your body is exposed to an extreme level of emotional distress. In this case your nerves overshot to try and compensate for the loss in blood pressure and you blacked out after--"

"...I remember." Her face flashed before her eyes, the way it was when they found her, not the way it should have been.

"We're monitoring your heart, which happens to be more erratic since we saw you last after the accident.--"

"I'm _fine _Dr. Palmer." He saw her enough times to be familiar with her _stay off my case_ tone.

"True, you're completely healthy; healthier than most of the doctors who walk these halls. But you do have minor significations of PTSD--"

"Who doesn't have stress?"

"Everyone has stress, good and bad. But it's the way _you _deal with it that creates problems like these."

"Easy, I don't."

"That's the point Ms. Scott, you don't confront your stress issues unless they are presented vicariously. Especially on your job. We've scheduled you many times but you never come."

"I don't like hospitals."

"We're here to help you."

"You're here to tell me I'm crazy and the wrong person to be doing what I'm doing. So what is it this time...beta blockers? Paxil? Fludrocorsitone? Midodrine?--I've heard it all."

"I know you have. I know your chart. Agoraphobia at seven, chronic panic attacks at fifteen--"

"And somehow I manage to pass evaluations. I've been doing it for years doc."

Dr. Palmer sat at the end of her bed and she didn't move her legs to make more room. "You have a mask for every problem, and I know it's getting harder to manage; you don't have to pretend."

"You think I don't know when I'm about to faint? Or when I can feel my heart beat so fast and hard that I think for sure I'm going to die?" She smiled, humored by his obtuse diagnosis. "Doctor, if and when I want my fear to control me...I'll let it."

"What do you mean?" He asked, the degrees he hanging on his wall became mere paper behind glass

"I mean medicine doesn't have a mind or substitute free will. Some people are drugged into putting up with their past or repressing it, and then there's the few like me who make fear their bitch."

Antonio came into the room and wasn't surprised that she was up so fast. She knew a lecture about taking care of herself and laying low was about to come but he said nothing. Dr. Palmer caught the silent hint. "Agent Scott, I'm releasing you against my better judgment under one condition."

"Name it."

"I want you to take a sabbatical...two months."

"You're shitting me right? I can't do that. I _won't_ do that."

"Do you need a doctor's note?"

"This isn't high school George. If God _himself _opened the sky and told John Pollock I would drop dead in two minutes, he'd give me a gun and a watch before kicking me out on that field just the same."

"Then I guess you're staying overnight.--"

"She'll take it." Antonio spoke up. He could feel her eyes burning craters into his skin. "_Right?_"

The combative expression she threw him moved the doctor to his feet. "I'll let you think about it."

"What was that all abou--" Before she could finish barking he grabbed her face and kissed her; she could taste what he was feeling, taste the words that stopped on the tip of his tongue. "I'm not going anywhere." She answered trying to console.

"You were overwhelmed today."

"I was tired."

"Liar. I knew you getting involved was a bad idea."

"Byron didn't change anything and Raven didn't change anything; I fought for her like I'd fight for you or Jess, or anyone. I can't help that."

"It just scares me how much _control _you have over yourself." His tone change for "control" threw a her subliminal message. It was clear he meant control as in a dictating power, instead of composure.

"So you want me to be dependent?"

"I want you to be smart. You're only human and your arms aren't but so big to carry all that weight. Promise me that you'll take it easy. Maybe not two months easy but...time to think." She purposely lost interest and coherence and played with her nails. "Nic."

"I heard you."

"And..."

"_And, _I want to go dancing tonight."

"That's hardly the idea of taking it easy."

"I'm not handicapped Antonio. I just want to dance, we haven't done that in a while."

"Are you making me a promise?"

"Are you getting me out of here?"

Every agent knew that death was a part of the job description, and that saving the lives of others came with a price of risking your own. They all had seen days like this and triumphed them all as another lesson learned. A closed case never meant a justified one, and the papers would be running _Six year old girl drowns in lake behind house_ like it was the weather by morning_._ Every fiber of Pollock's being ignited like flint. Despite his rough exterior he had a sensitivity for children. After all, he had his own and gnashed his teeth at the thought of placing them in a position more vulnerable than simply being his seed.

"If my car was made to go a mile over it would've raised from the pavement." Pollock told Janice rushing through the hallway. His promise was that he'd at least make it home to read to Chloe and play a game of Egyptian Rat Screw with Michael.

"John, she--"

"I couldn't find that Twilight book but I've got Heidi and Harry Potter, so what do you feel like?" There was no answer. "Chlo-Bo?"

"She's not here." Janice's shadow eclipsed the light from the hall. "It's Friday, I put it on the calendar that she'd be at Lacy's."

"And Michael?"

"Tim's, they have a hockey game tomorrow in Fairfax."

"I...forgot." He tossed the books on her bed.

"You shouldn't have rushed home, it's dangerous."

"I made you, and the kids, a promise."

"If you can't make it, then you can't make it John. Micheal's getting older and, those fairy tales, they're losing their magic for Chloe."

"And so am I."

She wrapped her arms around his waist, her chin resting on his shoulder. "You'll always be their father...you can't work that away."

"I'm worried about them. I should be--and you should be--"

"You need to give up this fear that you'll find them dead--"

"It's not some fear Janice. It's reality. One of my best agents is being hospitalized as we speak. I can never forget that face Janice, she didn't even look human."

"That girl wasn't your first loss."

"No. I've seen women, men, children, pets, all die horrible deaths before my very eyes, on _my _watch. But the thing is, _I_ saw it, _I_ was there. So there's a difference between a loss and a failure." He slowly moved her hand and started out the door.

"But you blame yourself for both so what's the difference?" Janice followed.

"A loss, you know that you did all that you could to save them, you see their face, you can tell them it's going to be okay and if they die in your arms it's..you know for sure that there was nothing you could do. But a failure, it's different. It's blood shed and blood never forgotten. Because when you don't know what really happened, your mind wonders and wanders and it can drive you crazy knowing that you didn't get there in time. And then you think, _if I kicked down that door one second earlier, would they still be alive?_ It's a cold feeling Janice, getting to that point where there's no one to console, but a body to bury. And that's a failure."

She touched him again, loosely this time. His tenseness wouldn't allow him to feel her touch anyway. "I'm your wife John. I'm not congress or the Board of Directors, or God. I'm your wife. And I don't care. When you walk through that door, I don't care! Because you are the hardest working human being I know and no one deserves that on their conscience even if it keeps a roof over our heads. Our kids, are the luckiest in the world; they're not cursed they're not doomed. They have us, and we're fighters. No questions, no doubt, no losses."

Jess took a sip of the expensive wine Colin purchased, probably an overcompensation for his lack of good conversation.

"So, how have you--"

"Cut the small talk." She nearly choked swallowing the wine in a hurry to cut him off. "I didn't wear this dress for my health."

"He laughed. "You look beautiful."

"I know."

"You're here to get answers, I know. Why I called things off between us, why I never called."

"Because you wanted your sexcapades on a clear conscience?"

"No. Because I didn't want to hurt you Jess. I didn't want to give you a reason to be disappointed in me whether I took advantage of it or not. You saw what happened to Nicole and Antonio."

"So now you can decide what I can and can not handle? We're not Nicole and Antonio because we're not selfish enough to fight for our love over our job or the slight chance that I might get skeptical. Face it. You couldn't trust that I'd be there for you so you were a coward, not a savior."

"...I agree."

"So why'd you come back?"

He leaned in closer. "I never left."

Antonio had always said Nicole was a black woman who moved like Griselle Ponce. They fell in love with a Cuban salsa; it was how they regained their sanity and transferred their burdens onto the skin of the other. Back then he could tell everything about her by the way she moved; quick and precise with the essence of fluidity, which read impetuous but still a woman. A waist that tossed like raging water, her sensuality left its wetness on him. But he wasn't completely unwritten. His strong frame never led her in the wrong direction, protecting her from the aggression around them even if it meant he'd crash. He anticipated her spontaneity to never be caught off guard. She could tell he was the forever kind in the way he held her. Now they were reminded of that same feeling as they danced again, eyes reciting poetry to each other and at times so close their bodies became a layer of fabric away from sex. They danced to Oscar de Leon's "Yo Quisiera" until every other couple had no choice but to move, until his arms grew tired of whipping her weight in circles, until her calves felt like exploding. Until they left their fear on the dance floor.

Her cries rang loud and clear and he was there to answer them. With a transcending love and descending body he assured her. She wanted to know that she'd be okay in the morning, that she wasn't crazy and if she was he'd still look at her the same way. That night in bed she felt fragile to the touch, as if she could slip through his fingers like sand but Antonio wasn't one to take advantage.

"Do you trust me?" She whispered softly.

"Of course." He answered. "Why?"

"...Because I need to feel you tonight. I need every atom in your body to make me stronger. And I don't care what happens after that, just say that you'll be there."

"Do you trust me?"

"So much it hurts."

"Then we'll be okay."


	10. Chapter 10

**PART 2**

* * *

_"Nicolette."_

_"That is not, my name." She sassed the man 3x her size boldly. Only her mother joked in that way and although she hated it, she protected any connection they made together._

_He put one foot in her bedroom. "Haven't seen you wear that nice dress I got you. Where is it?" Nicole pointed to the beautiful Haitian doll on the bed wearing a familiarly patterned headband. The scissors were still in her hand with the crimson red thread between its blades. "That was a gift to you Nicole. Your mother should have taught you some damn manners than to do shit like that." She mumbled something under her breath that angered him and clenched his fist. "Little girl you better start respecting me. Don't you know I am two fucks away from being your new daddy?" He laughed as if it was a joke, as if what he had done to her days ago made her less human and incapable of holding feelings for her mother. True she was as naive as she wanted to be, but Nicole couldn't complain if she never confessed. Drunk as hell or higher than heaven, Lydia wasn't as stupid as she acted and had the potential to kill a man over her child. After all, she did it once. But Michael was different, a crooked cop with the intention of riding their family until the wheels fell off. Lydia felt she needed an inside track, somebody on her side to make jest of legality and protect her with it just the same. Nicole saw right through the badge, through his pet names drenched in perversion that conditioned her to hate anything but her own name. _

_"Now why don't you be a sweetheart and come give me a kiss." He flicked his tongue like a serpent._

_"No."_

_The perverted smile deflated. "Fine." He charged in her room and grabbed the doll on her bed. "She'll kiss me."  
_

_"Give it back!"_

_"Not until you give me that kiss."_

_"Give me the doll!" She jumped for it but he was taller, with long arms that could've hit the ceiling._

_"Not yet, I think she wants to go for a little swim."_

_"You can't get it wet--it's not a toy!" As if she spoke a foreign language he gripped it tighter, a burning look in his eyes that drove him to the sound of running water where Lydia's bath was on the verge of overflowing. _

_He suspended the the doll over the tub, pinching the ribbon around its waist. "You think this thing will float or sink?" He laughed swinging it._

_"Please stop."_

_"Stop? You're a smart girl, tell me: if this pretty little baby doll was your mother, you were the tiny yet significant string around her waist, and I was God, the hand above it all...just how far would you go to keep her alive."_

His threat pierced her heart, knowing that he meant what he said if it meant he'd gain control over the only thing that stood between him and her mother.

_"What do you want from me?" The cry in her thoughts crept up her throat, but her strong will kept it there.  
_

_He laughed in that same menacing way. "You are your mother's daughter."  
_

_"Michael?" Lydia's voice boomed from down the hallway causing a startled hand to drop the porcelain beauty into the water, taking Nicole's eyes with it. His apologies faded into white noise as she stared at the glassy eyes peering out of the water.  
_

Early morning rain streamed down the face of the window pane. The night still felt connected to the now as the sun refused to shine. There was a captivation about her body that had never came on so strong than watching her in silence. She sat at the edge of the bed like a work of art; revealing the dimples of Venus on her lower back that drove him insane, and the pain-filled scars she harbored as she pulled her hair over her left shoulder. He realized that what they had done last night was different from any other night; it was a commitment of trust that even he had never experienced with Anna. Like she said, she wasn't a fan of "accidents" happening. But for a woman who never trusted men outside of the ones printed in her stilettos, Nicole made a big step and he appreciated it. Connecting more than the body, but their soul, she held his glance in hers refusing to look away even for the split moment of penetration. He studied her face like a college course, as she bit down on her lip to stay quiet and breathe. It felt surreal there, as if she was a hologram in his mind of unconventional beauty and the sorcery between her thighs only existed in his dreams. Now she cloaked herself in apathy for the sake of her own sanity and his. To keep him out of the loop, but she was bad that when every day he learned more about her ways.

"How can they make caskets that small?" The first words out of her mouth had to do with what she tried to suppress all night long but couldn't. "That's pretty morbid don't you think?"

"It's pretty morbid that you think that way first thing in the morning." He laughed massaging her shoulders until she purred, until she held her neck out unconsciously for a vampire's bite and he kissed it smelling the Escada Into the Blue that held all night.

"Are you afraid of dying, Antonio?" Her eyes were closed so she couldn't see the look on his face. She already felt she was crazy and didn't want his stare to confirm it.

"...I'm afraid of dying without you." He answered.

"I wish it was that simple: choosing when we die and who we die beside." She sighed wrapping the bed sheet around her until it resembled a wedding gown. He followed the train with his head.

"Nic, if you're pregnant..."

"Then we buy a bigger car." She joked from the bathroom.

"Do you think you'll still stay an agent? I mean, I know it's not impossible to do but...would you?" She was quiet, the running faucet hiding her groan. "Nic--"

"I heard you."

"But are you listening?"

"Yes, I'm listening father dearest."

"Did you mean what you said last night?"

"Antonio--"

"Did you? Because I know you well enough to know sometimes you say things to shut me up and then there are times you actually mean it. So which one was it?"

She came out of the bathroom with the toothbrush in her mouth."Yes, I want to give you a baby. And because I don't shout it to the world doesn't mean I don't think about it every day of my life. So I'm sorry that it took me five years and finding an innocent child face down in a lake for me to realize that I wanted it just as bad as you did."

He tried to speak but she anticipated his attempt at consolation. "Yes, I know she wasn't mine to lose and that I shouldn't have played that role, but I've never in my life felt a love like that; it was so genuine and untainted and beautiful and...unconditional. And that's what I want. It's what I've been missing, so much so that I search for it in every case. It's not motivation that drives me to these people it's...a need."

"...I'm sorry--"

"Don't apologize, you don't owe me that."

Nicole went back in the bathroom and started the shower; she suspected the sound of the water would overpower his voice or get him to speak louder. Instead he followed her, knowing that she hated to be followed because she wanted it so bad from a man but he could never catch on. His strong hands gripped her hips. "Please stop." It was evident in her voice that she didn't mean it. It was a plea to hands that didn't belong to him.

"Nic, you can't run from me. I won't let you. So say what you're not saying."

Lydia looked at herself, cursing her high metabolism from giving her more of a butt and her overall features that rendered a "Hey it's Tina Knowles! Where's Beyonce?" every time she walked outside. Besides, she liked to think that she looked far better. There was something she never felt before while reflecting there...silence. Days on end since her birth she never had a moment of peace; drug dealers, prostitutes, murderers, whoever she could room with always kept her life eventful. And an empty bed took years getting used to. Ever since her father passed she felt she needed somebody, anybody, to stay by her side. The quiet proved more of an obstacle than those devil's rejects she befriended. Silence made her think, made her regret; she had to deal with herself and decide whether she liked what she saw.

"Good morning gorgeous." Tender lips kissed her on her neck, followed by a french manicured hand sliding down her shoulder. Lydia cringed as if acid touched her skin. "You okay?"

"I...have a lot to do today, I think you should leave."

The hazel-eyed beauty laughed. "Lydia--"

"See, I don't even know your name. And this is weird for me on an infinite amount of levels so, I think you should go."

"My name's Lena, and, what's wrong with you?" She reached her had out to play with Lydia's ringlets but she moved as if dodging a speeding bullet. "Wait. But you, you told me you were a lesbian."

"_No,_ no I told you, I was lonely. Trust me I love the male parts."

"But you were at a lesbian's _bar_." She laughed again, confused as ever. "Why were you at a lesbian's bar, if you're not a lesbian?"

"I needed to be in a place where we all had something in common: avoiding the dick."

"Lydia, ha ha, you are too cute."

"Look Lola--"

"Lena."

"_Lena_, I don't think you need to know my life story but, I'm a reformed nympho, okay. I love sex, eat sex, breathe sex. Well, I used to until I realized my problem only led me to the wrong men."

"So you tried woman."

"Wrong. I decided to live celebate."

"So it was your first time being with a woman?"

"Wrong again."

"I am so confused, I don't know--"

"I don't need for you to understand me Lisa."

"Lena--"

"_Lena_. But I need you to know that it was a huge mistake. I was weak, I was drunk, and I didn't consider it to be a risk so..I needed somebody...anybody."

"You mean any_thing_. Is homosexuality a joke to you?-- because it's obvious you don't care who you get it from, as long as you get it. I was just your quick fix, now you're gonna drop me like a dirty needle."

"That's not true. I meant what I did when I did it but, it doesn't make that the smartest decision in the world."

"I have feelings Lydia, and you were better off telling me I wasn't your type than to say you made "a huge mistake" and slept with the wrong sex--you know what, you are _just_ like a man." She grabbed her coat and purse. "I would've thought that for a woman whose been hurt enough you would never dream of causing that same pain on someone else."

"Lena."

"Oh you finally got my name right?"

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Of course not...because you didn't mean anything! So why don't you call me when you make up your fucking mind, okay?"

"Hey Antonio." Jess sounded as tired as she looked.

"You look like you haven't slept in days what's wrong?"

"Colin and I had a date last night."

"Ew."

"No, not that." She pushed his arm. "We were out all night, I can't even recall half of it, or how I got home, or how I'm here, or why I'm here, or if I'm even sleep right now." He pinched her. "Thanks. Where's your other whole?"

"Taking a break."

"Not by free will of course."

"Doctor's orders."

"Doctor...what doctor?" Antonio looked away in guilt. He had promised Nicole not to speak to Jess about her hospitalization, and definitely not the idea of PTSD. "Hel-lo?"

"Forget I said that."

"Impossible, tell me."

"I want to live to see tomorrow."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"The woman I live with, who knows just what to look for when I lie."

"I'm her friend."

"She doesn't want you to be bothered by it."

"Antonio please."

He took a deep breath, guessing his common sense escaped with it.

The scent was not his own, as if the lion of the pack could sense another entering his domain. It was Byron Morrows, dressed down for once and guarded down.

"Mr. Morrows."

"Sir Pollock."

"Sit."

"No time."

"Then what can I help you with if not a seat?"

"You can help me by fucking off."

"Excuse me?"

"You and your team. I had so much respect for you I was blind. I forgot you were human and that humans fuck up. But you sit here in that chair like some god with the power to saves lives, and you are just like the rest of us. How do you sleep at night?"

"I don't. According to Agent Scott I'm a cold vampire."

"Maybe she's right."

"Mr. Morrows when we come to this job everyday we get immune to the trauma, the heartache, the emotions. Because it requires a certain amount of ice to keep you from getting burned." Byron diagnosed Nicole in his words. "But don't mistake our strength for heartlessness, because some of us care so much we'll let our guard down for that one moment, just to feel what you feel, to be human again. And that's what winds up hurting us the most."


	11. Chapter 11

**I know I'm gonna get a big ass reprimand form IOTL for taking so long haha. I know I know I know, trust me I know. I hate having to postpone my work because my life has been so hectic recently with school and competition season, and being in a musical as well which demanded so much of my time, I've been a little delayed. I finally started to have time for myself and I don't remember how it feels anymore. Well, this chapter is another one in parts. This one is basically an introductory to the second part that's why it is so short. Sometimes I seem vague at some points in my writing, not saying specifically this chapter, but it is because I KNOW what I'm talking about and what I'm trying to explain, but I forget that the audience does not lol. I guess that's just egotistical on my part but if you're lost in the sauce, which you probably are not because you're great writers yourselves (Unbridled) you can PM me for clarification. Love to all, enjoyate!**

* * *

Female shrinks didn't make her anymore comfortable than the men, in fact it made her less comfortable. Women were already a conniving, deceitful, and sickeningly intuitive species, and to add the title of "psychiatrist" on top was a double whammy. Nicole felt like she sat on pins and needles, as if her eye movement was monitored, every turn of her knees or cross of her ankles to make something out of nothing. On the bright side, this woman did have the best shoes out of the others.

She caught Nicole's admiring stare. "They're Y--"

"Yves Saint Laurent." Nicole finished without hesitation. "$895."

"And you, Alexander McQueen, svelte stiletto heel...a whopping $921. You got me beat."

"It's not that fulfilling when you don't eat for weeks."

She laughed. "I'm Dr. Roberta Howard. Dr. Palmer assigned me to sit with you for some sessions and I'll be--"

"Shrinking my head."

".._Analyzing _you. So why don't we start with the beginning. Tell me something about your childhood."

To her dismay Nicole wasn't so cynical as to tell her the horror stories, or as compliant. After all she had her background condensed onto a single piece of paper, legal pad length; it was her job to know about the abuse and abandonment and tease her mind with it.

"It was alright." She smoothed out her jeans and smiled.

"Reading these notes, you didn't have much of one. It seems you were forced to grow up faster than you should have."

"Some people need to be pushed in order to survive. If you stay in hopelessness too long you'll find that there's no way out, and that people on the other side of the fence don't give a damn about what you've been through. You adapt, or you die."

Dr. Howard turned her eyes back to her outline. "I'm sure you've been told that you've beat the odds. In the critical periods of your life you were already missing two prime pieces of your family."

"And you say this to..?"

"Your father, Emmaus Délimon. What can you tell me about him?"

"Born in Haiti, loved to play music..couldn't read it, moved to the States in his teens, changed his name, met my mom, had me, beat my mom.."

"Anything more..._personal_ you know or remember about him?"

"...I know what color his blood is."

"Agent Scott, fathers play a huge role in child development. Especially in young girls. Statistics show that having a representable father figure in the home generates higher levels of self-esteem and confidence. Do you think his death had an impact on you?"

"I was three, of course it impacted me. A lot of things that have happened in my life wouldn't have happended if he was there."

"...Like?"

Nicole grew silent. Not reverent or pensive, but disturbed to the depths of her being.

"And what about the years spent with your mother, accumatively of course, how were they?"

Now she felt Mrs. Howard's hands taking hold of the root of her, tugging, trying to extract what she buried deep for a purpose. "They were fine."

"..Fine?" So there's absolutely no animosity?"

"What for?"

"Well, with the death of your father, the majority of your life you've spent in foster care, not with her."

"It wasn't by choice."

"She made a choice to do what she did, which eventually led to her absence in what seemed to be some of the most difficult times of your life."

"I feel like you're trying to turn me against her Dr. Howard."

"No." Her innocent smile was effortless in the tension. "I'm presenting you with various views of the situation. Completely non-judgmental . I just want you to draw your own conclusions."

"My mother fought for me. She has been in situations no woman should be just because she wanted me to have even the littlest things I asked for. When she was there, she was the greatest mom in the world. And despite her habits, because I know you're going to bring them up, she always wanted the best for me...because she loved me, and I know that now."

"You say you know this _now_, what did you believe before?"

"That she didn't want me back, that I bounced from state-to-state, house-to-house for a reason...because I was a mistake that she wanted to erase."

Dr. Howard's pen scribble fiercely across the paper with purpose and she began to feel guilty for saying what she did.

"I don't blame her." Nicole added. Her pen stopped. "You should write that."

Lydia found working at the doctor's office boring and dull, it wasn't surprising that she slept with a woman to spice up her life. Besides gossiping with befriended RN's there was absolutely nothing to look forward to but lunch. The silent sedative nature was enough to put her to sleep, but she didn't expect to be caught off guard by the ice-blue eyes staring in her face. She had recognized them from past visits but someone else always took his case. They had shared nothing more than a glance or two but it was one that reminded her of her wayward morals.

"Can I help you?" She licked her lips and hid them in her mouth.

"Kearney. Sam Kearney."

She typed his name in the system. "You don't have an appointment for another week Mr. Kearney."

He smiled at her, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mark Harmon. "I'm here with my nephew this time. He's getting his cast off today."

"...Do you want me to check on him or?"

He laughed. "No I'm, trying to make conversation."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Ha ha, no ma'am."

"_Ma'am_?"

"There's no way to talk to you is there?" He respectively leaned onto the desk and she could smell him. Strong but smooth. Now she could relate to what Nicole had said about emotions being "triggered" by the smallest things. "You'd think after being a ball-breaking Admiral for most of my life I would at least be able to talk to a woman."

She crossed her legs under the desk in defense of his words. "You don't even know if I'm married."

"Well for one, you don't act like a married woman."

Surprisingly she didn't take offense, just curiosity. "And how do married women act?"

"Like that." He nodded over to a woman in the waiting area, her head hanging between her legs.

He watched her smile and enjoyed every second of it. The double doors opened and he could see his nephew. "Ms..."

"Lydia."

"_Ms. Lydia_, I hope to see you next week."

Complaining was never Jess' thing, not when it came to men. But Colin was one that pushed the envelope. She wanted to believe more than anything that she ended up in his arms again because he missed her, not because they both knew that she'd be so vulnerable as to give herself guiltily. There was a distance in his eyes that could not be met with the proximity of their bodies, and although Antonio pleaded to her not to pry, her inner bitch demanded the opposite.

The person whose advice she cherished the most wasn't talking much. And although Jess knew why, she couldn't care if Nicole didn't want her to. The fact sheets she read on PTSD and her nonsensical belief that everything she did would "trigger" Nicole made her skeptical around her. Special treatment was unheard of and unappreciated, no matter the circumstance, but Jess couldn't help but feel a sympathetic attachment that made her friend uneasy every time they spoke.

"..And every time he says 'I care about you' it's like, this vacant space where emotion was meant to be. Why can't he say _love_?"

Nicole was disconnected. Dr. Howard's words played over in her head like a broken record. _Forgiving and forgetting. Honesty and reciprocity._ She thought about her mother, and imagined the look on her face when she would come clean about Micheal. She thought about the doll her father gave her, its soggy dress and cadaverous stare. She thought about Raven.

"_Nicole_."

"Yeah." Her eyes nor body moved.

"...Why couldn't Colin say he loved me? Hes said it before."

"Before or _after _you knocked him off?"

"Nicole."

"Sex talk is incredulous and unsound; you'll say anything to boost their ego."

Jess ignored her lack of concern but couldn't find it in her to place the blame there. "...You seem, effected lately." Jess said lowly. "Like there's something you want to talk about--"

"What's there to say? You know it all."

"Are you mad at me for knowing?"

"I'm not mad."

"Maybe not, but you've been a lot of things: avoidant, forgetful, hypervigilant, emotionally numb--"

"Would you _stop _quoting symptoms from that damn paper? You sound like my shrink."

"I'm sure she was only trying to help too--"

"I don't need help. I'm not special ed and I'm not a handicap, I'm just one of millions of Americans whose had a difficult life. Not some disorder old white men get after fighting in 'Nam, so drop it."

Jess continued to seal the finished invitations, trying to convince herself to be angry with Nicole for her unrequited benevolence. "Pollock's worried about you."

"Drop it."

"He's taking your condition into consideration and as your friend I think I should tell you there's a possibility that you might be removed until--"

"Goodbye Jess."

"Nicole I'm not trying to offend you. You don't wanna talk about it, you don't want me to talk about it; you're trying to control everything but what you _should_. I can't see why you don't want to talk to me but you'll talk to some stranger for hours."

She abruptly got up from the table in hopes of ending the conversation but Jess was just as determined as she was to break through.

"You've been there for me. When my brother was missing, you were there. When I cried all night over Colin, you were there. I took a bullet for you because you've always been there! Now here I am, willing to take that bullet again, but you'd rather shoot yourself."

"I'm scared!" Her voice cracked. "Do you think I want to be this..this _thing _that I am? You don't know how it feels to have a wall you've built to block the very memory that can kill you, just crumble overnight. I'm scared of myself. And I can't stand to be this way around you, or anybody that cares about me." She wiped the tear from her eye. "I don't even think I can get married. "

"Nicole you can't do that. You need him now more than anything."

"When you decide marry somebody, it's about being whole Jess. It's about love and your life together, the future...and he deserves that from me, he always did. But right now, I don't have it to give."

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	12. Chapter 12

**Bring out the belt IOTL, I know you're gonna whip my ass lmao! I can't say how sorry I am I've been so busy but I love posting for you guys so I'm not hiding. I love the feeling when I complete a chapter to my liking and I hope you guys like reading it just as much. Love and peace!!!**

* * *

_"It's not definite, just, a possibility." Nicole swallowed hard in anticipation of his response._

_"So there's a possibility you what, might not show up?"_

_"Please don't do that."_

_"Do what."_

_"Make it seem like I don't love you because for once in my life I can't control what I'm feeling. You can't hold that against me."_

_"I'm trying not to." _

_The gruff remark ate at her sincerity.__ "I don't know about you, but I can't walk into a marriage knowing my head is somewhere else." Catching her cheap shot at his short-lived courtship was far too easy and made him use all the guilt-stricken sympathy he felt for her to keep from firing back. "...It just, wouldn't be fair to either of us. So..."_

_His eyes fixated on her fingers, twisting at the ring with uncertainty, pulling it up and pushing it down unable to decide which way felt better. The ring slid off her finger as effortlessly as it looked.  
_

_"I need to figure out somethings, and I need to face my fears about it and I don't know how I will, or how long it'll take, but I will. And the second I do, we're going to get married, and there won't be any part of me that won't belong to you." She put the ring in his palm just like she did in Phoenix, leaving him with a promise instead of a slammed door. "Do you trust me?"_

_"...So much it hurts." He fought back the single tear stinging in the virgin duct of his eyes.  
_

_"Then don't give up on me, because I'm not."  
_

He couldn't get angry, no matter how much he tried to force it and make evident his frustration with her. The wedding invitations went unsent and he felt sorry for loving her enough not to marry her. Not yet anyways. After all her kisses lacked emotion and the conversation she made echoed through her hollow core where her sense of humor and intoxicating passion for life and love used to hold space. The doctor said they were sound symptoms; the perfect imperfections that served as a scapegoat for his bitterness. And with each passing day Antonio remembered the woman who took care of him when his pain was only physical, and couldn't shake the feeling that he was the one giving up, not her.

"Remind me why I'm going on _your_ honeymoon." Lydia pushed down on her suitcase while Nicole zipped it.

"Because I need to talk to you without outside influence. And it's not a honeymoon, it's...a paid vacation."

"I feel bad doing this."

"It was all Antonio's idea."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"Wherever it is I hope there are no men."

"What happened to the guy from work? He gave you that pretty bouquet of roses."

"They looked like casket flowers."

"He was nice."

"He was too young and clingy."

"He was 45 and who cares if he was clingy, he was hot."

"I'm not looking for a man right now Nikki."

"Well they seem to be looking for you."

Colin could hear her singing the whole Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack under her breath to the tapping of her fork on the dinner plate. She remembered how annoying it was when Jack used to sing it around her, but somehow she sat in front of expensive wine and silk napkins and couldn't help but feel out of place and time with Colin. Something about the relationship felt dragged on by a stubborn rope, and she felt the tug at her wrists.

"Shall I roll the credits?"

"Oh, sorry about that."

"It's fine. You're pretty quiet tonight, besides singing about a _sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania_. What's on your mind?"

Jess was hesitant to bring him one step closer to the inner workings of her mind but confessed for the sake of conversation. Then again, he rarely asked those questions and when he did she jumped at the chance to answer. "Do you ever wonder how life would pan out if one thing changed? And it could be the little things like having orange juice in the morning instead usual coffee, or deciding to take the long way home instead of the shortcut. What if, we missed something, something wonderful or traumatic that was supposed to happen because of the simplest choices we make."

"You're scaring me."

"Nevermind."

"...Do you think you made the right choices?"

Jack's face flashed across her mind. "I don't know."

There was something most beautiful and entrancing about Hispañola. Something unsaid and unwritten in all the textbooks she ever read about the horror and diaspora. Lydia always told her that the States had changed her father's humble spirit, that he forgot the values he was taught as a child or at least suppressed them to get what he wanted. He left his rich accent for a city boy swagger, trading white sand and clear water for cocaine and polluted streets, and a name denying his roots to be respected when his color was already against him. Lydia often felt she was another figment of his imagination, getting him as close to a white woman than was allowed. And where he admired the complexion of her skin, she hated it and wished to be as black as she felt. Pitch black.

Nicole pulled up her tinted sunglasses and let the sun beat down on her face. The salty air tingled her sinuses but the wind felt like therapy itself. She could pick up bits and pieces of conversations around her, filled with "Dominicanese" slang but still understandable at the right moments.

She watched her mother constantly look over her shoulder, as if Nicole's father or at least someone who looked like him would pass by and jog a memory that was exhausted to begin with.

"The Haitian border isn't for another 200 miles," Nicole interjected, "_you are now free to move about the country_."

Lydia finally leaned back to where her daughter laid motionless. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I brought you here because I need new memories..._better _memories. Though I don't think there's enough better memories in the world to push out the bad ones."

"Oh it doesn't even have to be that many. All you need is one good moment in time to last you forever."

"Like?"

"Like your third birthday, when you wanted to ride the white pony on the merry-go-round with all the pretty jewels on the reigns, and some big girl took it before you could get to it.--"

"And that's a happy memory?"

"It was once I made her cry to her mother and sat you on the high horse you're _still _riding on."

An unexpected smile stretched across Nicole's face until she started to laugh.

"See, _those _are the memories that matter."

Nicole nodded reluctantly; her mother had a way of making her feel apart of the childhood she missed with her enthusiasm.

"Now I want you to promise me something."

"What."

"That you'll never tell me about the bad things, even when I'm older and grayer and you think my little old brain will forget by morning."

"Mom I--"

"All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, to be safe, no matter how horrible I was at it. And to think that I failed you I, I couldn't handle that. Not again."

She remembered the scars, and how when her mother saw them was paralyzed with deep resentment. She couldn't bare to see her that way again and certainly what she had to tell her would've turned out worse. So no matter how it sounded, they were both guilty of being selfish, but there was no way to spare one without hurting the other..

"...Have you ever seen a satellite picture of this place?" Nicole started up as if her mother never spoke at all. "This side of the island is much different from the other side. The side people don't get to see. Haiti is still beautiful but, haunted, rebellious and vulnerable. Barren. And being here, you would think the two were worlds apart...but they both share the same history." Lydia was silent. "...I promise."

"Agent Cortez, you've been working quite diligently lately." Pollock's figure at the doorway didn't scare him like it used to, silicone soles or not, his entrance went unnoticed just the same.

"Idle hands are the devil's playthings, Sir."

"So is an idle mind."

"Agreed."

He could tell Antonio didn't feel obligated to fall for his small talk anymore. "...What's this I hear about a two weeks notice?"

"You mean the one I was supposed to give you two weeks ago."

"Why didn't you?"

"Efficiency. The more people gone the less you get done."

"I can find a replacement."

"Okay, then I did it for the homeostasis of competence. I can't trust anyone to do my job right but me."

Pollock took his hostility with confidence that he could break through. "How bad do you miss cybercrime?"

"I don't."

"If I could guarantee you a higher position--"

"I stay or I go. No moving around."

"Do you want to leave?"

"It doesn't matter what I want, you know that. It's what's best for the team, and I've got to do it if no one else will...Sir. That's one thing I've learned from you."

His mother called a record of ten times, claiming how she knew it would come to this. As much as Nicole charmed her with good cooking skills, humor, and "caderas de maternidad", she said that running away was her nature. She was filled with nomadic emotions that she would forever be captive to and pull him in each way she turned. He could stand to hear her voice because he missed it so much, but he discarded every word she said knowing that she was speaking from her motherly duty of protecting her son.

"You _know _that I love Nicole. She is an amazing woman, generous, intelligent, sweet. She is everything that I wanted for you...and everything I didn't."

"How can you say that?"

"Yo sé que vas a proteger a esa mujer, y no te importa lo que yo digo--"

"Y ella también haría lo mismo para mí."

"I just don't want your heart to be broken my son. Not again."

"We're fine."

"Then why did she give you the ring back?"

"I didn't ask and I don't care."

"If she planned on marrying you, why didn't she keep it? And why did you send her away?--"

"Stalemate."

"How?"

"Because I don't know nor can I relate to what she's going through. I can't give her the empathy she needs. So if she's strong enough to make me a promise this time around, then I'm satisfied."

Lydia stood out on the balcony, the smell of her smoke drawing Nicole out of bed. "You don't have to wait til' morning, you _can _sleep in the same bed I do."

"..I can't." She sighed.

"Why not."

"Because I'm not that strong Nikki."

"But you want to be."

"Yeah I want to be."

"I'm still the same girl, I just take up more of the covers now."

Lydia smiled briefly. She tried to look in her daughter's eyes and see the child she remembered, the child she spoiled rotten and admired everything about her. She stared until tears clouded her eyes and her commonsense urged her to look away from the woman she stood beside. Something was missing that she remembered being there before and she didn't know how to ask without tears.

"I'm not asking for the story because I wouldn't be able to handle it. But, I know it happened to you--I know, _it_, happened." Nicole fixed her mouth to lie just to protect her mother. "I just want to know if you were with me when it did."

"Ma.." she spoke her name with a sympathetic sigh.

"Don't try and baby me. You tell me what I want to know."

"...You told me not to tell you--"

"I know what I said."

"Then why ask questions you don't want the answer to?"

"Because not knowing hurts."

"And knowing won't?--"

"Nicolette!"

Hearing her name spoken aloud, the same discontented tone brought back that memory. Her jaw locked shut like a rebellious child and the emotion in her eyes switched as drastic as day to night.

"Were you with me?" The tear slowly fell down her cheek but she was listening to intently to wipe it.

Nicole had spent years building up the courage to tell her the truth. That she blamed her for being there more than not. But she loved her mother even when people said she shouldn't have, and the truth was she was stronger than her, and she'd carry any load for her sake just because she could..no matter how much it would hurt her in the process.

"...No."


	13. Chapter 13

**Terribly sorry for the delay. Boy what a delay that was. Again, so sorry, hope I haven't forgotten how to write a good chapter.**

* * *

She was born into the "New South" as they called it, though still hung up on their old ways. As a little girl she didn't know the history of where she stood or the horror in it, still from what she could remember of Charleston, it wasn't so bad; despite the haunting stories of slave ghost appearing on the Angel Oak trees at night, and useless etiquette of how to be the perfect "Southern Belle". Her father raised her to fall for the men in uniform and tuxedos, who'd pull out her chair and make her a better day. And it was every girl's dream to marry a man like their father, an eleventh commandment that was never unspoken in the south. But Lydia was never one to comply. Not that anything was wrong with her father. Julian was the perfect black man, if there was ever such a thing to be heard in her day. The "strapping young negro with a good head on his shoulders". He was the type to get a second glance, even from the white women clenching to their lover's arm only to loosen their grip with curiosity at his smile and intellect. The youngest and only survivor of four boys he was determined to do what his parents couldn't: stay in South Carolina, try to break the barriers and be someone extraordinary, a pioneer of sorts. Of course he wasn't the first black man to "attack" a white woman, but he was one of the few who believed it was love and was determined to prove it could be. But Lydia's mother, the Scarlett O'Hara of her time, had other plans, plans that didn't include being pregnant when she was due to be married to a clergyman's son. After all, he was Irish too, and could enter the same door as she did without having to walk five steps behind body bent and head bowed. No matter how she felt about Julian she knew that the real world wasn't ready to accept them, or their child. Still he pleaded with her, promising to take the blame if she chose to lie and to take care of the child if she wanted to walk away without looking back. "If I can't have all of you," he whispered to her ear in the midnight just as dark as his complexion, "then let me love half of you".

She sang because there was no other feeling like it. Because her father was a jazz buff and in his short life span raised the daughter _he _named Lydia to know good music when she heard it. "Moody's Mood For Love" was a staple in her young life, something that brought back the scent of his cigar and butterscotch candy fetish. It spoke memories to her senses that resurrected a happiness that stretched from the tips of her toes to the top of her head; it was a happiness only a carefree childhood could bring. Lydia quickly became his everything, and to keep her untainted by her environment he became her everything too. Her earliest memory was her father sitting her down and telling her that the only love that she could ever trust was his, and that it was in her blood to look for something better because she was indeed just like her mother, and his genes couldn't change that. After his death she made a rough transition to Detroit to live with her "grandmonster", though staying in the heart of the city wasn't enough to rid the unconscious Carolina drawl in her rage and the ubiquity of her old-souled pet names when she talked with a loved one. Her grandmother forced her to use the voice she silenced in grief to sing in the church choir. She was refused lead because she sang too sensually; but the only passion the twelve year old knew was her love of a song, something she and her father did have in common.

All her life music was all she knew as a way of licking her wounds, even when they were self-inflicted with the lifestyle she chose that led to jealous "friends" and no good men. When she met Nicole's father her naturally smokey voice and classic beauty caught his attention and pushed him deeper in lust once she sang; and on her desperate search for a father's love she was attracted to his wit and ear for music as well. No matter how hard his hand fell against her delicate skin, or the suspicion of "another woman" or women, he made love to her body like a drug, coursing through her every vein until she was in need, and could make her smile without words. He was nothing like her father, and she loved it. He made it necessary to forget that truth. Together they were toxic, both pained and confused looking for answers out of life and each other only to end up hurting the other more than help. And where others speculated their combustible chemistry, the couple knew music would be the pulse that'd keep them alive until they pulled their own plug, and only them. Having Nicole put Lydia that much closer to the hurtful reality of having to move on; her baby was the reason she had stayed this long and the reason she had to leave.

His finger traced down her center, tickling her chest and gracing her stomach with a delicacy she had never felt from him. His faint words were French, a song, though he was not a singer and she could not understand his speech. Whatever it was, it sounded pretty and the moody child inside her kept still.

"What does it mean?" Lydia asked on the verge of sleeping.

"What?"

"Ne me quitte pas. You keep repeating it."

"It's called a chorus baby." He laughed at how cute she was fighting to stay awake just to nag.

"Well what does it mean?"

"Nothing." He kissed her hoping she would let it go to save his pride from being shattered. "Just know that I hate hurting you, but, I can't help it. It's..who I am."

Lydia kissed the hand that held her face, not knowing how to respond but with the truth. "It's who _we _are."

"You think our kids gonna be like us?"

"...Who we are or who we were?"

Somehow he couldn't take offense to her words when the sincere wonder was in her haunting brown eyes. "...Who we should be."

"I don't know. I just, want her to love me..that's all I could ask for." She crossed her arms over her stomach as if her child would run away and leave her empty inside.

Looking at herself in the mirror she was quick to realize she owned no piece of clothing that could hide her three-month bump, but it made her glow and favor her body now more so than before. There was change to be had and she had to get use to welcoming it with open arms, and not because it was doctor's orders. No one could have told her there'd be no government-issued manual or how-to guide on being a wife and mother. She felt lucky enough that Antonio had stayed the same when she suffered from the inability to stabilize her own emotions.

"Alright let's see who we've got here." The cold gel spread around her stomach. She shuddered. "What are you hoping for?" He directed the question towards Nicole, after years in his practice he grew certain that the woman gets offended when her mate is asked; as if it matters what he wants.

"I don't know, and I'm not quite sure I want to."

"Everybody wants to know but her." Antonio added.

"I'm sure some people could care less."

Antonio tried to laugh the undercover scrutiny of her own mother and his out of being discussed. But the look on her face told him she wasn't through.

"There we are." The doctor interjected and pointed to the screen. "That's the--"

"The heartbeat." Nicole finished. "And that's the head to the right, and the hand there." She addressed their stares with an explanation. "There was A Baby Story marathon last week."

"That's a great initiative. You can learn a lot from watching other mothers experience the process to know just what to expect, the good and bad. That way there's no surprises."

"Well the biggest surprises aren't televised to the world." The two men grew silent with her failure to smile after. If they were waiting for her to turn the phrase into a monologue about the joys of raising a child and motherhood, she wasn't going to. She had a newly developed cut-and-dry attitude that Antonio blamed on the symptoms but she could in fact help it, she just chose not to.

"So, the baby." Antonio pressed.

"Oh, yes. Congratulations, it's a girl."

There was a silent but audible "fuck" that she couldn't take back once their glances united.

"Pardon?"

"He probably thinks you're going to dump the baby in the nearest dumpster, Miss Hannigan." The elevator doors opened and an innocent bystander got on.

"Antonio you know how I feel about having a girl. Especially now."

"Babe, you have to get over your paranoia of a gender. She's not entitled to your past, your failures or successes even. She's her own person, and  
we should raise her that way. She doesn't have to go through what you did." He rubbed her back trying to soothe her obviously uncomfortable body language. The nosy agent leaned her back against the wall where they were..not a subtle eavesdropper.

"It's more than that it's, deeper. Something unconscious that I couldn't touch if I tried."

"You're scared, I get that. But we can't let fear get in the way of our life together...or relationships with ones mother.--"

"Dammit Antonio, I swear you're having an affair with her. No matter how much it pains me you go behind my back and talk to her. What lies did she tell you this time?"

"That you haven't talked to her since the trip."

"_I'm_ not talking? I've called, I've visited, she doesn't pick up, she doesn't come to the door. She's the one making this hard not me. The woman craves drama and if things get too safe, too simple she splits."

"Like you."

"I am _nothing _like her." Her rash tone silenced him...temporarily.

"Then don't fight fire with fire. Why is it so hard to talk?"

"Because she's not talking to me because of the _truth_. And the truth is all I have to say to her."

"She's probably just as hurt knowing about it as you were experiencing it. You're her daughter and she wanted to be the one to protect you. She just wishes you would've told her, or at least planned to. Not to mention she's upset about us getting married without her knowing."

"Nobody knew, that was our deal. And why should my confession matter? As far as she was concerned she wasn't around to stop it."

"But she was."

"Yea she was, and she didn't."

"You didn't give her the chance, you kept quiet about it."

They watched the woman hesitantly exit the elevator as if she contemplated going to the wrong floor to hear more. Nicole waited for the doors to shut tight before letting that vulnerability of being in  
love with him take over.

"Look, I know how I feel about you, and I know that I love all the things in all the ways you make me feel it. But sometimes you can be so disconnected from it all._ I_ know Lydia. _I_ was the one to hold her hair back after she drank so much we spent the night in the bathroom floor together. I lied for her, I cried with her. We always had each others back when things got hot. But when it came to mundane life and mother-daughter things...I was Sunday morning and she was Saturday night, we fought constantly. I wasn't three anymore she didn't know what to do with me or how to set boundaries or discipline. She didn't want to know. It would only give me a reason to hate her like she hated her own mother and...that was always her biggest fear."

"Nic,"

"Nobody wants to wake up after one night and find out that their 'baby girl' isn't a baby anymore. That's just the way it is."

When she rolled over she didn't expect another body to stunt her stretch. Crashing into his chest with the impact of a stone wall she remembered the hazy night that brought the naive bait to her door with the authentic silk-lined box of Johnnie Walker's Blue Label whiskey inside. Premium blend. Sam came because she asked, despite her constant rejection of him and claims of disinterest. However, he wasn't familiar with her coping techniques; her sense of motherhood had died and she was mourning the loss with a one-night-stand, like she always did. The only council she wanted was his fingers spearing through her hair, where each strand made love to the next, intertwined by nature. That, was therapy. And the absolute last thing she needed were his questions.

"You alright sweetheart?" He ran his hand down her bare back as if to calm her, but couldn't see her face scrunching for him to stop; annoyed like an alley cat forced to interact with a human touch. "Lyd?"

You know, my sex used to be so good the man would actually stay asleep. I must be losing my touch."

Sam smiled but she was serious. "I heard you crying."

"I do not cry." She snapped as if he had suggested she jump off the roof.

"_Whimper _then. It's not still about your daughter is it?"

"Don't talk about my daughter. Don't even think about my daughter."

"Lydia?"

Her eyes softened once she caught herself and settled the pit of her stomach. "...Sorry I'm..I don't know, paranoid I guess."

"What about?"

"Kearney please don't try and get me to open up to you. I'm not your woman I'm not your wife. I'm nobodys woman, nobodys wife. That's my life's curse and I'm okay with that."

"...But you're somebody's mother." He took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing each finger to lull her. "That's something that will never change."

As much as she wanted to ball her skinny fingers into a tight fist around his thumb and knock him out, she couldn't. Her hand was asleep and she only had her words. "What the hell do you know about being a mother?"

"Well, I'm a father."

"Ha, fathers. What do you know, about bringing a 7 lb 7 ounce little girl into this world? To watch her walk and talk and, call you 'mommy', to feel like you can never do right by her because you're so messed up inside, you feel like you don't deserve her or anybody until she puts her tiny hand on your back and tells _you _everything's fine...when you don't have a drop of hope in your body." Lydia felt her stomach turn again with emotion. It was intense and electrical and surged through her veins. "Then you let her down for the last time, and you wait for her to say 'it's okay' and 'it'll be alright mommy'...but she doesn't. Because it's unforgivable."

Sam pulled her hair back and kissed her neck, it was hot and feverish to the touch. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She looked over her shoulder at him, brows twisted. "I said no."

No matter how fast his feet ran in circles, he couldn't spin the office chair around any faster. On his last go-round he saw Nicole at the door way and slammed his feet down to stop himself. "A-Agent Scott."

"Doug." He hopped out of her chair nervously, almost stumbling to the floor. "I was uh, keeping it warm for you."

"I appreciate the sentiment." She sat down in her chair for the first time in a long time with no ambitious feelings or urgency that came with being in that very room.

Doug watched her subtle squirming, it was clear she forgot how to position herself in the chair and no way seemed right. "So, there's a baby in there?" He pointed to her stomach casually.

"Pretty much." She laughed.

"It's kind of funny how babies happen. It's not like those Sci-Fi movies where the aliens implant their eggs deep in your tissue, and when you least expect it--AH!" She jumped. "They scratch out your stomach like an angry lion cub."

"Doug!" He turned his head.

"Jess, hey I was just--"

"I thought you went to the bathroom."

"Oh yeah." Doug's quick epiphany rushed him out the door.

"Sorry about him. He likes you you know."

"What a poor, sheltered man." Nicole looked on her desk at the various neon post-it notes the secretary left when she was too scared to talk to her face-to-face. She laughed at the trivial ones, confessing that she broke her stapler and lost a pen cap. But the mood changed once she saw pieces of her life spread out on the desk...

_Dr. Howard requests session. Mother wants necklace back. Ethan in hospital._


	14. Chapter 14

**Wow! You guys! I'm so so sorry lol. I can't help but laugh because it's ridiculous how long I've been taking lately but, besides school and competition season coming up, I have a huge organization problem. Books here and there filled with bits and pieces and I have to bring them together and make sense of it. I can't stop what comes to me and I try my best not to block it. I'm not dead, I'm just..delayed. I want to thank you all though for being here, still reading even though I'm horrible at time management. Just stay with me! (Missing you so much in this fandom Unbridled! And where the hell is story101?! That's where the angry mob of readers should be gathering lol)

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_Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We were wrong, of course, but it doesn't matter. It's too late._

_--Toni Morrison_

Their frames molded together as if paralleled souls could mirror one wholeness. The movie that put them to sleep must have seeped into her dreams for her to wake up confused in his arms.

"What time is it?"

The red-lighted digital clock was blinking on and off, "...I don't know." She tried not to groan so loud that he'd take notice, but he did. "...Your flight, right."

"Yeah. But as soon as I find out what's going on, I'll be back." He accepted her initiative, the fingernails along his scalp, because it felt good. Still he didn't seem convinced. "Hey," she touched his face, "in a few months my stomach will get so big we'll never be this close again...kiss me."

There was a smile, and she was grateful, contact and she felt loved; what she wouldn't speak aloud now coated his taste buds until it became hard to swallow. She could feel him chipping at the wall she had built and longed for the shambles back.

"I gotta go." The words were spoken against his lips with urgency.

"...I still think I should go with you."

"No. I know Kelly, and she'll think I'm rubbing my life in her face, like I can help it."

"I thought we promised not to play down our marriage for anyone."

"I'm not playing it down."

"You are. Just like you play down everything else to make her feel better. Well when are _you_ going to feel better?"

"Antonio please. You don't know her, you don't know anything about her."

"I know how she feels about me."

"She didn't mean it!"

"Didn't mean it...didn't mean it?" He repeated it first out of shock, second solely for her to realize what she had said.

"Yes. Didn't, mean it."

"So you spend months at a time avoiding people who _d__idn't mean it._" Before he could retract his words back into mere thoughts she left a vacant spot on his body where cool air rushed in and took her form. To say _he_ didn't mean it would be contradictory, he could not neglect the honesty she first fell in love with. he could only apologize for the way she took it and the emotion it provoked. "Sorry."

"Don't try and fix it."

"I don't know what you're going through, and I'm not going to pretend that I do or that I can change the way you look at the world but...you have to deal with it Nic. You have to deal with it and you have to forgive people for more than just you now."

"...Wow...I love you too."

"You're going to have to talk about it, and you're going to have to _want_ to talk about it or it won't go away. Ever."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want peace for you."

The anger she felt fed off her own silence. Dr. Howard had told her the same: the truth doesn't hurt, the denial of it does. And in order to make the step to a clear conscience, it took believing in someone enough to know that her heart wouldn't break in their hands. After all, that's what it meant to trust.

"He wanted me to bleed." It cascaded out of her diaphragm, and rendered him speechless. "Michael wanted me to bleed and I didn't. He couldn't leave his mark on me and that bruised his ego. But you don't have to bleed to remember....the pain is enough."

"Nic--"

"Please don't bother cutting me open and dissecting me, because I won't bleed just to make you happy."

Pollock felt the pressure of his notoriety caving in. He had prided himself in perfecting a team of agents that wouldn't disgrace him, and he had done it, despite his snide comments and dry humor. They had made him proud and he never knew it until he looked around. There was a crumbling feeling about his every step, a tearing down of all he had built and no one was there to put the pieces together again. His were the hands put to the plow, as well as the ax. If the root of it all was him, he didn't know just how deep those roots escaped into the earth, or whose progress they interrupted along the way.

"Sir? You wanted to speak with me?" Jess closed the door behind her, not wanting the world outside his doors to hear him make a scene.

"Mastriani, when would you say this all went downhill?"

"When what, went downhill sir?"

"My empire, my team, our..._our_ team. When did we all stop caring?"

"I haven't stopped Sir. None of us have."

"Cortez gave me this." He threw down an envelope on his desk. "It's a letter of resignation. When did we all, stop caring?"

Jess was hesitant to respond, but that didn't stop her from knowing what to say. "I recently found out that sometimes we let our expectations get in the way. We can want for people to do right by us, but, chances are it means being someone completely different from who they are."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying maybe, we are what you want to see in us: the determined, hard-working, FBI-loving agents who would risk it all for this business. But in reality, we're not you...Sir.

"Are you leaving too?"

"No Sir."

"You mean to tell me that if that McNeil character rode clean through this building in shining armor on a white stallion you wouldn't pack up and go galloping off into the sunset?"

She laughed, something she rarely did around such a high-strung boss as John Pollock. "Colin and I aren't...together...anymore."

"Eh, you were too good for him anyways." He continued browsing around his desk as if he had said nothing.

"Um...you, think so?"

"If I dig this hole any deeper it's considered sexual harassment Agent."

"Right, ha."

"That Burgess, he seems like a respectable young man."

"But he's in Atlanta."

"And the devil is in hell, that doesn't stop him from talking to me on occasions."

"I don't know, Jack's kind of--"

"Mastriani. This conversation really shouldn't go any further, I feel my testosterone levels plummeting."

"Right again Sir."

_I can't catch no man hangin' out at the discotheque, well I believe in the boogie but the boogie don't believe in me._ Lydia whispered melodically, not sure of why she remembered the lyrics from decades past or where she had heard it last for it to be in such proximity of her conscience. It was proof that she hadn't evolved from the days when Janis Joplin dripped from her drunken lips until she wrapped herself in bed sheets and cried herself to sleep. So here she stood in the store front, staring at white dresses displayed on even whiter mannequins with the same question she had posed since those days: why white? White to her had no morals or promises to keep, no religion, no allegiances. White was a bigger slut than she could have ever lived up to. At first glance one could tell just how many times she's been around the block more than any other color. White is a rat who tells any and everything...and there's nothing pure or innocent about a slutty rat.

"You always looked better in red." Lydia's heart jumped at the touch, and seeing the familiar face didn't help.

"Michael?" Seeing him again was bound to come with the territory of shopping in Maryland, his hometown.

"You are still as beautiful as I remember." He hugged her and she hesitantly hugged back, she could feel his face nestling into her hair.

"Mm, you smell good."

"How'd you fi--how've you been?"

"I'm grand, retired from the force a couple years ago. You been staying out of trouble?" He laughed but she didn't.

"If I got into any trouble it was because of you, muffin."

"Yeah we had our times didn't we? Good times."

"Your wife thought so too. You two kids still together?"

"Fraid not. On wife number three. And you I'm sure never even bother with monogamy all these years."

"You know me, never bothered chaining myself to a tree."

"But you always did bark at the porch." She looked away from his eyes, set in a pool of deep chocolate skin. It reminded her of why she was addicted to him back then and what made it so hard to leave when she did. "How is uh Nicolette? Your daughter." he walked on stormy seas boldly, only with the assurance that a teenager could keep a secret.

Hearing her name leave his lips felt like poison had been injected into her soul. She recalled Nicole's last words to her and wondered if he was "the bastard" that did it. All along she had hoped he wasn't, she didn't want to react in a public setting. Plus, he had always shown kindness to Nicole that _she_ could see...as if her sight could be trusted at all after choosing him in the first place. But at that moment, she knew the truth with one word, and the mother lioness inside her was resurrected, yet muzzled for both their sakes. But she knew, the Countess of Cool, knew.

"Michael, you know I'm the only one who called her that." Her smile made him nervous.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He laughed as if he had lost memory. "_Nicole_. How is she?"

"She's...older."

"That's good. Tell her Mikey said hello."

"Why can't you tell her yourself? I can call her for you."

"..I don't wanna impose on her life, probably doesn't even remember me! If it makes you happy, you don't have to tell her about me at all."

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't."

Michael was visibly confused and if he could read her mind, he'd be smart to run. _Kill him or cut him?_ ran marathons in her mind and it was unbeknownst to her own conscience as to who took home the gold.

"Well maybe we should get together sometime." The hand he held out to her had perspired and trembled under the unusually tight grip from the woman he recalled as submissive and weak. "Why are you looking at me like that?" There was an uneasy laugh from him under her unmoved stare and stiff hand.

"I would love nothing more than to have one _last_ good time with you."

He kissed her hand. "Just don't tell the Mrs."

"Oh you know how I am about keeping quiet baby."

"So, are you going to tell me what happened or did I come all this way for nothing?"

"You could've just called." Kelly scoffed.

"I could've. And risk the chance of you whining about how I don't love him enough to come see him."

"Shh. You'll wake him."

"What happened Kelly."

"He had an episode at the game. He has ato--"

"Atopic hypersensitivity, as well as asthma. I never needed a doctor to tell me that."

"Well _you_ were the one who suggested he go out for a team sport, not pointing fingers."

"Because _you_ were the one that kept him in a bubble all his life, _pointing_ fingers."

"I'm sorry, when did you become the expert on raising children? Last time I checked you didn't have any because you're so damn narcissistic."

"Wow, you have yet to grow up. What a surprise."

Kelly stuck out her tongue. "So, where's this hubby of yours?"

Nicole ignored her satiric tone and watched her pour the wine. "He's minding his business, why don't you?" Kelly slid the bottle angrily across the marble at her sister. Thankfully Nicole caught the neck of the bottle before its wobbling weight could tip over and shatter. "I'm not thirsty." She slid it back.

"Too good for wine now Miss. D.C.?" Kelly left her glass transparent within seconds.

"_Mrs_. D.C. to you, and I don't drink."

"Ha! That's a damn lie. I got two words for you: Janet...Jackson." Kelly's allusion to Nicole's 25th birthday where she did the "Nasty Boys" dance step-by-step made them both smiled subtly, though they could still hide their humor and continue through the tension.

"I can't drink. I'm pregnant." Nicole admitted.

The smile in Kelly's eyes slowly faded and dropped from her sister's. "...Well, it was fun while it lasted." Her mumble didn't go unnoticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Say it."

"You have to have everything, don't you? You went to college, got a life outside of Chicago, a career that immortalizes you, a man who loves you and a ring to prove it, a big house--you got your mother back. Now, a baby. Just when I thought I could have something all my own, you have to have it to."

"This has nothing to do with you Kelly. If I wanted this baby just to spite you I would've called during the conception."

"Then why'd you even bother to tell me?"

"Out of courtesy. You offered me wine, I didn't want you to think I was being a bitch."

"No, it would've been courteous of you to not even come here. And since when did you care what I think about you--or what anyone thinks?"

"I care. And if I didn't I wouldn't be here taking any of your shit. When are you going to stop blaming me for your bad decisions?--and before you even open your mouth, I'm not talking about Ethan."

"Just because I'm not you, your highness, doesn't mean I hate myself, or my life. I'm proud of my choices, and at least I don't hide my past behind a badge. We grew up in the same dysfunctional crack-houses of life but the difference between you and me Nikki, I can deal with my shit. I don't need to pretend like it never happened just so I can wake up every morning and be someone I'm not."

"Fuck you Kelly."

"See, same ol' Nikki...coming back home does that to a person. Didn't want Antonio to know who you really are huh?"

"You're right, he should've come, so he could see why I left and why it's pointless to come back. If there was a wrinkle on your face for every grudge you've held you'd look 3x your age."

"You are the _queen_ of holding grudges!"

"I am not."

"And apparently you're a liar too!"

"Kelly please.--"

"Guys!" Ethan stood at the edge of the kitchen in his pajamas, not a hint of drowsiness in his eyes. He had lied awake hearing their voices through the walls and couldn't shut them out.

Kelly quickly put on her cloak of kindness for the thirteen year old who always could see right through it to her true intentions. "Sweetie what's wrong?"

"You guys! You're family. And I don't know what having a brother or sister feels like, but, sometimes you guys make it look so bad. You always fight."

Nicole felt reprimanded with the role reversal her nephew took charge of, while Kelly felt the need to cover up the mess they made. "Aunt Nikki and I weren't fighting baby."

"Yes, we were." She confessed and Kelly glared.

"Family's supposed to make you feel good, that's what my coach said; the team is a family, and we have to help each other."

"Life isn't like soccer Ethan." Kelly lamented into her refilled glass.

"No. Life's not a game. But that's why you should always be there for one another, you never know when your time's up right?"

_"Give me your hand."_

_"Is this gonna hurt?"_

_"Of course it's gonna hurt, it's a knife."_

_Kelly closed her eyes tightly and held out her open palm. The metal was cold but all she could feel was the hot sting of its point slicing her skin._

_"You can look." She opened her eyes to their linked hands. "Now we're sisters, forever. My blood is your blood, anything I can do, you can do. You believe it?"_

_"I believe it." Kelly squeezed their palms together tighter. "But what if nobody else does?"_

_"Who does your hair for school when Claire doesn't come home?"_

_"You."_

_"Who taught you how to fight?"_

_"You did."_

_"And who takes the belt for you even when you did do it?"_

_"You do."_

_"Then never let anybody tell you we're not sisters."_


	15. Chapter 15

"Still waters run deep."

Ethan dropped another slice of Chicago-style deep dish pizza on his plate. "I never knew what that meant."

"My mom used to say that to me whenever I was hiding something."

"I'm not hiding anything."

"Ukraine." He looked over the crust at her and started to smile. "You didn't think I forgot our secret word did you?"

"It was a long time ago."

"A part of being a creepy agent is being able to remember what's important. And you're important to me."

"I guess this means I have to fess up."

"We made the rules."

He sighed because she was right. "We don't get to see you a lot. And now you're married and you're going to have a baby and we probably won't see you even more now. That's why Mom gets so mad at you all the time."

"She told you that?"

"She doesn't have to. You used to always be there whenever something was wrong and now...you're not."

"E, I love you and your mom with all my heart, and I know it's scary and its been for a long time for you. But I can't always be here, I can't always fix things. I want to, but I can't."

"This is a big city Aunt Nikki...me and Mom, we're only two people in it. You're all the family we know."

Nicole took his hand from across the table and squeezed it. "There is nothing and no one that can replace you and your mom in my life. You have to know that."

"I do. You spent most of your life trying to make us happy no matter where you were. You never missed a birthday, you always knew what to say when things went bad. I think you should be happy now. Mom will get over it." She smiled at his sincerity and innocent intellect, wondering if the life she carried inside her would be the same.

* * *

"Aren't you Marine folk supposed to be hardcore killing machines?" Lydia slipped a drop of alcohol in her cranberry juice for temperance sake.

"_You_ aren't a Marine."

"I'm just as dangerous." Lydia said in defense. Sam kissed her, hoping he could get her off topic and on to something else. "If they take me away please make sure you bring my mail inside."

He moved away as if her intentions were contagious. "Lydia, you promised me you wouldn't try and murder that man."

"Sam you don't know me or what I'm capable of. You tell me not to because you know it's wrong to do, not because you know that if I start I won't stop."

"I'm telling you not to because I don't want to lose you. Is he really worth going back to prison over? Losing Nicole for good, never getting to see your grandchild? Is he worth all that?"

"_She's_ worth all that. Nicole will always be three years old to me, and there's not enough time in the world that can pass by or enough babies she can have to stop me from thinking of her that way. I've lived my life on pause for only her. And it hurts too much to know that she went on without me, healed her own wounds and forgave a lot of things that I will never be able to get over because my baby is only three. And she still needs me to fight for her."

" I don't get you. Through all that pain you love so hard and so strong for those you care about but...why are you so reckless with that love?"

"Because love was reckless with me. Love started this whole thing, so please don't tell me what I should and shouldn't do because you're not me, and your son grew up in the perfect home with the perfect family and the dog in the big backyard. We're from two completely different worlds, and we can't relate and we never will."

"So now we know what this is really about, huh? Race. You think just because I'm white I don't know what it feels like to be hurt? Or have somebody hurt someone I love?"

"I didn't say that."

"But it's true--"

"Yes it's true."

"But you can't find it in you to get mad at yourself?"

Lydia paused, the doe eyes he loved so much growing guilty and tense. "Get out."

"Why?"

The glass she gripped in her hand crashed into the cabinets behind his head and left red tears to stream down the wood.

Sam gathered his heartbeat before treading on the usually stormy sea that was her Gemini temperament. "You can't justify your vengeance because of what your mother and father didn't do for you. It's insane and you know it. Grow up Lydia. Grow up, because Nicole did."

She took a deep breath and raked her hand through her hair as if she didn't feel a thing. Not a sting or pinch. "...You're still here."

* * *

Antonio went through some of the things he kept hidden in a shoebox. There were some photos of him and his dad, which always made him smile; he was everything he strived to be in a man, a husband, a father. His mother constantly reminded him of how proud he would be of him if he were alive. He brushed off the rising emotion to be vulnerable once Ana's picture surfaced. Their wedding. The cathedral. The roles they played so well in black and white film. He didn't so much keep them for reminiscing as he did for regret of leading her on and giving up halfway in. It was the first time perfection had led him astray, looking at the two of them he was reminded of the top of a wedding cake: plastic and unreal. The pictures he held didn't capture what he loved most about her, why they fell in love and why they both believed enough in it to start. The photo strip of him and Nicole from Phoenix stuck out the side of the pile and made him laugh as if he had never seen it. He remembered them getting kicked out for banging on the booth and making obnoxious orgasmic sounds while a family waited covering their children's ears. When the security guard pulled back the curtain Nicole insisted that he'd walk out with his pants to his knees and he did, because he knew no other presence like hers and just being within ear shot of her bubbly laughter made him bold.

"Whatever's going on, it'll work itself out." Jess' hand rested on his shoulder.

"I thought you came here to escape emotional stress."

"You're my friend, I make exceptions." He closed the box and wouldn't budge until Jess caught the drift to look away.

"Keep them closed."

"Jesus, what do you keep in that thing?" She fought the urge to peek.

"Things Nicole would kill me for if you saw, ha."

"Phoenix?"

"Phoenix."

"You know, I don't know how you two keep your history so secret. Or why even; everybody knows you're freaks."

Antonio laughed. "It's not even like that. We keep things we want to remember, things we want to forget, can't forget."

"I hear ya."

"What about you, what makes you such an open book?"

"Knowing you two. You make all my problems look so tiny. I love it."

Antonio pushed Jess off the bed and laughed later.

* * *

It wasn't so surprising when Kelly walked in on Nicole elbow-deep in her closet arranging her clothing according to the color spectrum. It immediately took her back to when it was a daily routine for her when they slept in the same room as kids.

"What are you doing?"

"You know how clashing colors drive me crazy."

"I'm gone for two seconds and you already bring the Type-A freak show to town."

"You're just upset because I always knew when you and your little friends went through my clothes." She hung up the last blouse and anticipated Kelly's elaborate eye roll at her persistence.

Kelly did as expected while she reached inside her purse. When her hand resurfaced with a white envelope Nicole knew there was a dead-end ahead.

"It's all here and it's all clean, so there's no reason for you to play nobel."

"What is it?"

"The big polka-dotted elephant in the room. It's all your waitressing money back. It took longer than expected but I got it okay."

"I'm sorry, did you wake up and find a bloody horse head in your sheets? I gave you that money because I wanted you to have it, not for charity not for show. For family."

"Yeah and you couldn't stand the idea that I didn't want to go to college with it."

"I still can't. But I'll get over it. Not everyone is college material." Her last statement was mumbled yet poignant to any ear that longed to scrutinize.

"We were cut from the same cloth."

"I didn't mean it like that Kell."

"Just take the damn money."

"When will you realize that I'm nothing like who you think I am?"

"I'm not going to fight with you over this and I'm not going to let you talk your way out of it--take it."

"You're wasting your time. Why don't you give it to your son...tell him he can be anything he wants to be and mean it."

"Money doesn't validate me as a mother...so, here, take it."

Nicole felt the sharp accusation bite at her with Kelly's shoving the money into her hands. "Is that what you think of me? That I live my life the way I do to get under your skin? That I love who I love to spite you?" Nicole tried to camouflage the cry in her voice by smiling. "Kelly I love you, we're family, and I would do anything for you...except be unhappy."

"I never asked you to be my mother Nikki. I never asked you to take care of me or fight my schoolyard battles but you did because that's who you are...to everybody. So forgive me if I feel like all you see in me is a failure. I didn't go to college, I didn't save myself for Mr. Perfect, I didn't follow my dream. What do you think of that?"

"It never mattered what I thought, or what other people think. Because I know who you are--what all this made you."

"And what is that?" Kelly folded her arms, ready for more cruel words to be added to their chapter of sisterhood.

"Unbreakable." A tear streamed down Nicole's cheek and for once she didn't rush to wipe it away. She grabbed her purse and turned it upside down, dumping every morsel on the bed until the bag became lifeless. Kelly's eyes struggled to take it all in: the credit cards, the makeup, the glock, the passport...the medication.

Kelly's jaw lowered and so did her stomach.

"This is me. This is 35 years of the life you've envied. And it's a price that I can only pay off by death."

"Nikki..." she picked up a bottle of antidepressants. "Are you on all of this?"

"I was, _would_ be, but...they say if I take it it could effect the baby, and if I don't...then it could effect me."

"And you'll always put yourself last."

"...Always."

"How does it feel?"

"Well, _I_ feel. I feel everything."

"Nikki I'm sorry--"

"Don't feel sorry for me. Somebody's got to be unbreakable here."

* * *

Steam crept outside the bathroom door. She waited contemplating what and how, sadistic thoughts racing through her mind, much like they did when her love for Emmaus grew inevitably sour. But there was no room for pity or hesitation, or time to search for an ounce of love or compassion. Lydia knew this feeling all to well. She groomed it, invited it in; they occupied the same brain, shared the same cigarette. The fact that she laughed when the judge said she was "too pretty for prison" humored her yet again, deeply to the bottom of her soul where it fell through the cracks; she had lived long enough with her mind on lockdown, to be physically contained was nothing. The chloroform soaked rag she held in her hand felt as if the chemicals could burn through her skin just waiting.

"Lydia! I need a towel."

She leaned against the door frame watching him watching her from the tub, her hands behind her back like she was six again.

Michael laughed, as if the cold look on her face was of anxiety to have him climb on top of her for old time's sake. "You missed me?"

"Of course I did baby." She sat on the edge of the tub, her eyes following his fingers playing with the ends of her hair.

"You're still so beautiful." In his smiling face she wondered if he had forgotten, or if he had done it so many times that it was a permanent part of his life. She wondered how he could face her, how he could pretend so well and act as if he were blameless. "You got the towel?"

* * *

The battered skates had seen some wear and tear, so had his knowledge of being on the ice again. The temperature of the rink was nothing shocking, it felt the same way it did wherever he put his energy into being: cold, frosted, numbing. He could see his breath and knew his was living, even if only for that moment on the ice. The impressionable boy watched his dad fly across the ice as if he were weightless, the puck being abused as he knocked it around and shot it into the net like a bullet.

"Woah. Dad. I never knew you could play like this." He stepped out on the ice into a realm he felt didn't belong to him anymore, no matter how many trophies he brought home.

"Me either."

"Is that why Mr. Windsor let us in?"

"In a way." Pollock took of his helmet to look his son in the eyes. "You look shocked bud."

"Mom always said you were good at everything, even if you didn't try it yet. I thought she was just talking about being in the bureau."

He put his helmet on his sons head and recalled a time when it moved to his shoulders. Now it fit. "What do you want to be when you grow up...more."

"I don't know. Something I'm good at, something that makes me happy, makes you proud. Not every kid can said their dad is John Pollock. Not every kid can live up to it either."

"You already have."

He laughed. "Yeah right. By hitting this into a net? People are expecting me to climb mountains and survive in the wild with a toothpick."

"If you keeping doing what you love bud, there's no way you can let me down. I've made my legacy, and you're going to have to make your own."

"How?"

"Is hockey what you want to do?"

"Everyday."

"Then don't be afraid to succeed. Your mother told me you got MVP again."

"Yeah. I meant to tell you."

"Congratulations."

"I heard your solve rate is...getting better."

"Minor setbacks only provoke major triumphs."

"I have faith in you dad, even when you think you're too good for it." Pollock hit his helmet and laughed. "Can you show me that shot you did? I think I might try it at the game Wednesday."

Pollock reached for his hockey stick when his motion was interrupted by his buzzing pocket for the fifth time. But this one didn't go unaddressed like he promised. "Bud, I have to take this."

"Of course. We have to make our own legacies right?"

"...Right." He watched his son go onto the ice by himself without looking back.

* * *

_"Is she alive?" The bucktooth girl pressed her eye against the tiny keyhole of the old trunk. Lydia was curled up at the bottom like a hermit crab sweating through her dress. Too drained to keep her eyes open, almost too tired to breathe. But fully cognizant._

_"Summer maybe we can pour some water through there. Maybe she thirsty."_

_She sucked her teeth. "You gonna drown her Tibby."_

_"Then get Mr. Julius' saw, maybe we can cut through."_

_"Then you gonna kill her Tibby!"_

_"We could always tell Mama."_

_"Mama's sleep. And you know she'll tell Mr. Julius what we did and then he's gonna leave her cause he don't care about us nearly as much as he does Sunshine in there. Then we'll have to go back to Saluda."_

_"Lie."_

_"Lie? When he write, who he write to?"_

_"...Lydia, so?--"_

_"When he get money, who he send it for?"_

_"Lydia."_

_"He'd kill us if he ever found out what we do to her. She was here way before we was and didn't Mama say people who ain't got nobody, but one somebody, will do god-knows-what?"_

_"Well Mr. Julius is overseas, and he might not ever come back. So how he gonna know?" The twins smiled simultaneously and laughed with every fiber of their being._

_"You're right. We'll tell Mama in the morning, if she ain't dead by then."_

It was the last in the box, it shook from side-to-side proclaiming her weakness with the echo of empty space. Lydia had convinced herself she needed it, just this last time. She hadn't been cold turkey long enough for the smell of it to be strange, but it tasted as bitter as the broken promise. Marvin Gaye's "Symphony" spun hypnotizing circles on the record player until the melody struck her with a sweet swaying sickness. She pictured her first love, long before her last: music. The harmonic Motown sounds that filled Detroit streets before they became relics on a grimy mixtape. It lulled her mind into a montage of her own life; to her own symphony, the minors and majors of her past until the present came to a rest.

It was Cilla Montgomery. The auburn crown about a slender face and the gold-trimmed butterfly comb she tucked there. She remembered their first, last, and only meeting when she was six and those pale pink hands that reached out for a hug, only to be drawn back with a cool breeze between her fingers. She renewed the pain inside those misty eyes that at such a young age she couldn't recognize and deem it justice being served to her mother. But now she had lived enough life to know that whatever that woman got, she deserved. For so long she had been a fantasy of a foolish mind; a loving mother who'd give any and everything for her family. It never felt more hurtful than to be wrong about it her; it was a putrid feeling, an asphyxiated feeling, heating up and bubbling over. It screamed inside her like a million tea kettles until the lids were blown. Maybe her father was right, saying she would be just like Cilla. It was a deceptive nature they both possessed, in an unkind dose that could otherwise be lethal to foreign blood. But it lived in her, stretching to the tips of her senses, to every inch of skin she perfumed to conceal her unchaste motives, almost causing her to lose her parenting rights to Nicole's paternal kin in Biloxi and their hellish offspring. Emmaus' whole family, however wide the infection spread across golf cities, or however confined it kept its poison to the dirt roads and mangroves of Haiti, they were all "fools with pixie dust" to her, and it was bad enough his inborn voodoo had saturated her soul with a devilish charm. But now she wished she had him by her side, his fire that fed her own, another hand on hers to guide a speeding bullet for what they lived to protect, and would die for.

Michael's eyes fluttered open to a slowly turning ceiling fan above his head. There was no air to be felt, no coolness that journeyed to reach his face. Only a headache that pounded in his temples and a dry throat. Lydia stood at the door frame, observing his body like roadkill that refused to die.

"Help." He whispered, eyes darting around the room until he saw the face he remembered seeing last. "Lydia."

"What's wrong baby?" Her need to keep her tobacco-filled boldness about her lips made her deceptive words visible: a chalky grey cloud that slithered in the air.

"I can't feel anything."

"You sure can't." Lydia stepped over his body to get to record player and start Aretha Franklin's _Call Me_. "Completely numb."

"What the fuck's going on?" The panic is his voice fed the fuel to the fire she had been kindling for days.

"I can tell you what I did, or I can tell you why...whichever you feel most compelled to know."

"Psychotic bi--"

"Oh please. You can't feel from the neck down, do you really think I'm worried about you?" She smothered the end of her cigarette in the barren ashtray and stood over him. "You'd be surprised the things you can do with a fluid-filled syringe and chloroform."

"They'll lock you up for this."

She lowered herself until she straddled his still hips. All Michael could do was smell the tart aroma of her hair as she kissed his collarbone, pressing her body against a lost cause. "I always knew how to make you feel good when your wife didn't." The sensation of her tongue grew dim and the traces of her hands refused to linger on his petrified shell. Her fingers drew into a fist against his chest until she felt the courage to punch him across the face hard, the only plane of skin that felt real to him.

Michael licked the blood from his busted lip. "You don't have the heart to kill me baby. Never even had the heart to tell me no."

"This isn't about vengeance it's about karma. You stole something from Nicole and in return, I take something from you." She felt the pounding of his heart under her palm, so strong and guilty that it could shake the room into sorry shambles. "Her hurt made you feel good. Why would I give you the pleasure of pain when you can suffer from nothingness?"

"You're wrong about me woman, I changed."

"Snakes may shed their old skin but they still come out a snake. You're still the same sorry piece of shit you were 22 years ago."

"So. What are you gonna do to me? Hm? I can't hurt, you won't kill me."

"Pain isn't just physical Michael; you can take pills for that kind of thing. But there's nothing that can stop you from thinking about how much you hurt someone else."

* * *

**You guys don't know how sorry I am about leaving you high and dry. I know two of you for sure check here everyday to see if I post and that makes for a lonnngg time to be checking lol. This chapter is just part 1. Part 2 deals moreso with the confrontation of past feelings and present circumstances. Lydia really wants to do what she feels is innate when in comes to being protective but it's hard for her to try and break the cycle coming from her own history.**


	16. Chapter 16

Her dress was ripped and stained with dirt, what once was white had now appeared green and brown. If it wasn't for her shiny patent leather shoes against the bark her grandmother wouldn't have spotted her high in the tree to resentfully toss a train ticket her way. Now she wondered if something so small as not choosing those shoes that day could have changed her life forever. Lydia wondered where she'd be if she had never seen Detroit, never took that cigarette he offered, never fell in love with him. The obvious was there would be no Nicole, but she felt something more would be missing from a part of her even she couldn't reach. A trial. A right of passage. Something that made Lydia who she was and left no denying that she was a strong woman. Something would have been vacant in her, an experience, one that could grab her daughter by the arm in a way she had vowed never to do.

_"If there was nothing going on then why did the cops raid the house Nicole?"_

_"I don't know." She winced from her grip._

_"Don't lie to me when I know the truth."_

_"Jesus, he only had a dime bag!"_

_Lydia hesitated, knowing Nicole only knew what that meant from being in her care. "If you wanna smoke, you smoke with me. If you wanna drink, you drink with me."_

_"Aren't you supposed to tell me not to do those things? What happened to a mother's love and protection?"_

_"My love is different. My love doesn't put you on a leash because I want to control what you do. My love lets you run to the ends of the earth if you wanted, but it's always gonna leave the light on so you can find your way home. I don't know about any other mother but that's my love."_

_Nicole looked at her boldly. "So you want me to make the same mistakes as you."_

_"Look at you. You know what's right and you know what's wrong Nicole, you're not an idiot. You know what my mistakes are and you know how to avoid them if avoiding them is what you want. I'm in your life but you don't need me to be the angel on our shoulder."_

_"And that kills you doesn't it?"_

_Lydia swallowed hard at the expense of the precocious teenager, lost in eyes that mirrored her own. "You don't look a thing like me." She changed the topic because it was already an ongoing one in her head._

_"I know, I look like Emmaus, you say it all the time."_

_"You're starting to look less and less like him everyday, every time you open your mouth. It's like you don't belong to either of us." Lydia's fingers released her arm and picked up the cigarette that rested in the ashtray Nicole made when she was eight._

_She took it from her mother's lips and put it between her own. "You can't get rid of our problems that easy, saying I don't look like you or him, not giving me your real last name or his, not letting me see either side of my family--"_

_"Nicole Elise, don't you even go there. I've been over that bridge with you before I'm not crossing it again. You want to see your family? You're looking at it. You don't need to book a flight to Charleston or Les Cayes to know who you are." Lydia snatched the cigarette back._

_"At least you had your father. Both of you."_

_"Are you blaming me? Do you honestly think I wanted you to grow up fatherless?" Lydia tried her best to soothe her stomach, that twisting and turning feeling and shortness of an easy breath._

_Nicole watched her eyes water, a tear down a stone angel who wouldn't give in to sobbing like she was hurt._

_"I never promised I'd set an example for you Nicole, so thank God you were born with enough commonsense to know right from wrong. You're my child, yes, but if you never take an honest word from me in your life just know you make your own decisions and your own mistakes. I never wanted you to be like me and I never wanted you to be like your father either. The moment you existed I felt you were different, and the moment I held you...I knew you were. So if you could do me and the generations before you a favor, then don't be like us. Don't feel obligated to the bad decisions you make in life or their consequences just because we share the same blood. It's going to be up to you to emancipate yourself."_

The water in their wine glasses gave the two sisters a natural buzz, one they used to get throwing back shots that were bound to bruise in the morning. It felt like the old days together, days that they could never forget growing up when every waking moment was spent glued to the others' hip. Though Ethan heard some things he longed to forget while eavesdropping at the bedroom door, about past relationships where the man was a "one-trick pony", it was refreshing to hear them laugh again, together. It wasn't until Nicole found herself hugging the toilet bowl that a stopper could be put on the reunion. Kelly heard her using profanities she had never heard before through the closed door.

"You alright?" Kelly tapped with her knuckle, her nails still wet.

"Kill me now." Nicole groaned.

"She can take a bullet to the vest but she can't take morning sickness. Pathetic." Kelly opened the door and handed her the unsalted crackers. "You know, it does gets worse."

"So I've heard. I still haven't gotten around to the excitement of pushing something the size of a watermelon out my body."

"And isn't it such a beautiful price to pay? I can't believe you of all people are worried about pain; you used to put cigarettes out on your tongue. How can you not be excited about having a baby?"

"I am excited, scared, excited, it's all the same right?"

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know, messing up I guess."

"Nikki, that baby couldn't have two more perfect, loving, and selfless parents. I mean I know I call you a heartless bitch but that's just because you're my sister; you'd make a beyond amazing mother. Everyone knows that. Even you."

"Thanks Kell." Nicole managed to say before stuffing her face full of crackers.

"Now, I think you should go home. Antonio should be the one to hold your hand through this, not me."

It always felt like the old days, when having a beer with his buddies from Georgetown turned into high school again: the friendship, the classic masculine need to impress each other with their grown-up lives to see who lived up to their superlative. Biggest Flirt, Most Likely To Succeed, they were all titles that shaped the lives of these men in some form. Whether or not they could live up to it or change it depended on them.

"Here's to my boy Antonio. Great guy, great friend, hard worker...and it doesn't hurt that he has a smokin' hot wife. You really are Best All Around aren't you?"

"Are you still stuck on that? That was high school, Cliff."

"Yeah, well, look at me. Can't keep my spirit's up, can't put a bottle down. Too bad they didn't have a category for that one."

"How's everything with your team? I hear they're making state, you must be proud."

"They're kids. They've got so much life in them and they're determined. It must be something to not have to prove yourself, you know? You just be the best because it's your nature to be. How's everything on the federal front?"

"Slow. We used to keep such a rapid pace in there, constantly on the run. Everything mattered, everything was important, everything counted. Now it's like nobody cares anymore; it's like we've outgrown being those heros."

"Así es la vida. No one says that we'll want the same things that we used to years from now, not even days from now. We change, and the life we live will just have to adapt."

"Or we have to adapt to the changes of life."

"Mm, salud." Cliff raised his bottle and didn't stop until he felt satisfied.

Antonio's pocket buzzed until he could no longer stand it. "Could you excuse me for a second?--Hello?"

"I don't know if I ever told you this but you're my favorite son-in-law."

He laughed. "I'm you're only son-in-law. What's up Mom?"

"I was passing by and forgot that I have something for you, so I need some help getting the baggage out my trunk."

"Okay."

"Now."

"A-Alright, I'm on my way then."

When he pulled up to the house she was already waiting outside her car, leaning against the trunk with her arms folded. Not angry, just distant. Lydia didn't even notice the headlights staring at her.

"Mom?" He stood in front of her but she didn't move. "Hey."

"Oh. I didn't see you."

"You alright?"

"Never better. Let's just get this out, it's perishable." She popped the trunk open and revealed the grown man balled up in the fetal position, eyes darting and sweat trickling down his face.

"What the...?"

"I know what you're thinking: that this is crazy and I'm crazy but, I didn't know what else to do. So I drove around, and I thought about all my options but either way I'm going to end up in jail right? No matter how justified I think I can make my actions, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to inject someone with mivacurium chloride every hour on the hour, and I just can't keep doing it and reliving it and looking at him and then feeling guilty and then being angry at myself for feeling guilty for someone that doesn't deserve it and I just can't do that forever I can't be her hero and her enemy at the same time I--"

"Woah. Wait." Antonio struggled to take in her run-on sentences that only grew faster with her oncoming epiphany. "Mom. Who is that?"

"He can talk." She ripped the tape off his mouth.

Antonio looked at him. "Who are you?"

"...I'm...Michael."

"That's a name, not who you are." Antonio corrected with frustration.

"I'm that guy. The bad guy. The rapist, the criminal, the villain. I'm everything you didn't want to hear."

"So it was you then. You hurt Nicole."

"...Yeah. I did."

He threw back his fist but Lydia stopped him, hurting herself in the process. "Don't give him the satisfaction. Please."

"Why not!"

"Because physical pain is what he wants baby. He needs it to feel he's paying for what he's done, that he can leave knowing it's over...that we left all our own pain in a black eye or a broken nose. Those things heal over time, but Nicole will never."

"Then what do we do? She's not going to want to see him, I can't ask her to be okay with this. She'll hate you and she'll hate me and anyone who was involved. I got enough from reuniting you two--and you're her mother!"

"I know it makes no sense but she has to see him. Nicole feels like she can't control anything since that day and that's why she is the way she is: trying to dictate everything and everyone. She mocks what she was robbed of."

"And what about him? When the drugs wear off what happens? What do you think is going to happen to you?"

"I don't know." She whispered in her raspy tone of voice. "But she can't live life thinking that I didn't care, that I didn't try to make it right."

"And what if it makes it worse? Her seeing him again."

She smiled through her self-evaluation. "Then she was right about me: my love isn't different...it's just dangerous."

* * *

**Yeah so there is no excuse for my tardiness (practically absence). I just get caught up in a lot of things and fall behind in them all. On a good and exciting note, I'm in to risk taking heavily now. In all aspects of my life including this story so just be aware. ALSO, I ordered Season 3 from someone online that recorded all the episodes and put it into DVD format and can't wait to get it. Maybe I shouldn't be saying that for pirating reasons but I'm too excited lol.**


	17. Chapter 17

Falling into bed with her was his was what he loved most, although it took harnessing the power she used to deflect his questions to make her feel used in the best way. And she gave of herself unselfishly; it was in the strength of her back, the curl of her tongue. Her love crowned his head, it held him tight and refused to let go until he came to realize. Now is when her honey had never tasted sweeter where he found silent Spring in her body. The passionate blossom of silk-wrapped petals of a fervent flower. He kissed in a different language, fluently, until her back arched off the sheets. He could prune the tension there, uprooting what held her back with his own hands. Aesthesis in a touch, electricity in a stroke that surged its unique sting through to her fingertips. It felt like Phoenix, when ecstasy was easy to achieve and breathing became a chore. Only this time, the couple opted to take advantage of each other rather than take the other for granted like before. Now he could look in her eyes and see their future together, knowing that she came back proving she was there to stay. Wherever there was, as long as it was with him.

Nicole began to purr like a cat at the feeling of him holding her from behind, his hand passing along her skin until he slid the ring back on the rightful finger. Nicole smiled at the gesture.

"Deja vu."

Antonio placed his lips against her shoulder, on the fleur-de-lis tattoo he never bothered asking about. Until now.

"Your tattoo, when'd you get it?"

"I was sixteen, in search of something I couldn't find. Something that I lost a long time ago without even knowing."

"...Your dad."

"Lydia said when he was little his father branded him with the same symbol on his neck. Out of possession of course, but I never wanted to get rid of mine. It was out of love."

"Do you miss him?"

"I barely knew him. But I remember his music. And the doll. He gave me the prettiest baby doll. And apparently he'd get upset when I 'd rather play with the raggedy teddy bear Lydia gave me than his antique."

"He never hurt you did he?"

"No. Never. But I watched him hurt her. He made it look so easy to ruin the people you love. I guess that's where I learned it."

"Who you are is why I love you, and who you choose not to be is why I'm in love with you. It takes a lot of strength to make the predisposed things about us unimportant, or make them lies all together."

"You think I can do that?"

"I think you already have."

She looked over her shoulder at him. In his eyes she could see past her own insecurities of being loved by him and what once felt condescending was comforting.

"Do you know why I didn't tell Lydia about Michael?" He waited, not wanting to sway her one direction or another. When she answered freely it was only because she wanted to, because she needed to say it to clear air even he hadn't reached the thickness of yet. "I knew she was man crazy. I didn't want to be the one to take him away from her because I couldn't take the heat. The longer I held on, the more time I could have with her. We could be a family...me and her." She turned completely in his arms. "But you're my family, and I see that now. And I don't have to lose my dignity to feel I belong with you. Loving you is easy."

"Loving her could be easy too. She's your blood. You can't let the past come between you again when you need her the most."

"She never needed me."

"Of course she did."

"...Not enough to make a difference."

* * *

"Michael Wells, ex-police chief, currently lives in Baltimore with wife number who-knows-what." Pollock tossed his photograph on the coffee-stained table. "He's been reported missing for a few days by his newest spouse."

"Are you sure that's not his character? I mean, look at his track record." Jess' statement went unaddressed. "Where do we start? What's our lead?" She corrected herself.

"Your lead. What's _your_ lead. Look around."

Jess saw that no one was there. Spaced that used to be filled with ambition and agents was just air between her and the next solid object.

"Sir I can't carry this case on my own--I can barely think on my own.--"

"I will continue to look for backup for Cortez's resignation and Scott's medical leave since the Morrow's case but until then, you're going to have to act in their stead."

"I'm one person."

"I'm not asking you to go in guns a-blazing, I'm asking you to do your job. Investigate." He handed Jess the folder and walked off with more weight than he had entered with. It was in his posture, burdened and labored with things most incomprehensible to the human eye.

Jess punched the air, "Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!" she sang, turning around to have the file snatched out of her hand.

"I agree."

"Wha--Jack? I thought you were--what are you doing here?"

"Helping shovel _the bullshit._"

"But Pollock--"

"Called me this morning. Surprise."

"Great."

"Hey, I caught that sarcasm. So whose this guy?"

"Wait. You can't just show up and expect me to do this with you."

"Agent Mastriani this isn't the time nor the place for such a thing."

Her frustration was clear as she started to turn red and he smirked. "I meant partner with you. How do I know this isn't one of your schemes to get close to me?"

"Impregnating Agent Scott while forcing Cortez to resign isn't quite the way I would go about courtship with you. Unless you're into that kind of thing in which case you'd be stepmother to a cute little caramel drop of a baby--"

"Michael Wells. His name is Michael Wells just stop talking about whatever tangent you're onto because it's creeping me out."

"What? You have something against caramel babies?"

"Look, the biggest help you can be right now is just talking to the wife Burgess."

"Wife 1, 2, or 3?"

"All of them if you have to. Somebody has to have motive."

"He's the law, of course someone has motive."

"Then run his records through the database. See who he's responsible for putting away or if he was in some crooked deals, maybe he switched locations, changed his name."

"I'm not sure I can..."

"Aw." Jess pinched his cheek. "All brawn no brains? Look, a head of lettuce could Google, just see what you can find in the public domain until Pollock can find us more help. I'll go for the brains."

His number was on speed dial, not so much for forensic evidence cases as it was for finding synonyms for the overused words in her reports.

"Antonio, I know you don't work for the bureau anymore and I shouldn't even be talking to you about matters like this, but with you and Nicole out I feel...shaken.--Not that I doubt myself or what I can do but it's just that I'm used to the--"

"Familiar. Right. What do you need?"

"I need more info on our missing guy Michael Wells, an ex-police chief from Baltimore. Everything we've tried has been giving us a dead end with him. Coincidence or not. I know you can hack into the database and give us something more."

Antonio looked at Nicole who while getting dressed came to the revelation that she went up a whole cup size. "Is Pollock pursuing this case?"

"Of course. He wants the glory of saving someone in power, nothing new. The more people that owe him in the world, the prettier he sits, the more he gets."

"But he can't touch that case." His raised tone intensified the air on both lines.

"Why not?"

"It's...a sensitive one."

"Why? Because of Baltimore P.D.? Pollock trumps _God_ in the field--keeping their hands off it was nothing. They practically begged him to take care of it."

"Tell him, that you can't find sufficient evidence--which you can't. There are no investigative leads. Tell him something."

"And you think that will stall him?"

"It's not about stalling..."

Her vision was tunneled and reopened into white spaces where his voice faded out. She stood on shore of unknown earth, looking out over the water. There was a faceless figure, a woman whose gown flowed in the wind that tossed the waves.

_"Who are you?"_ Jess shouted over the rumble of thunder. There was no answer. _"Where is Michael?"_

The woman held out her palm where an anchor appeared branded into her skin. When she revealed the other hand, the decapitated head in her tight grip snatched the breath out of Jess' body and pushed her back into reality.

"Who was that?" Nicole asked.

"Uh, nobody." His tone was easily dissected by the ear of a woman that trained itself to catch lies in her web.

"Somebody had to call."

"It was Jess."

He scrambled for his car keys, making her uncomfortable in the isolation of mere conventional knowledge. "Well what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Antonio I'm finally learning how to trust again, please don't lie to me."

"Okay." The words he gathered in the attempt to make sense failed him. She had eyes that bore into his soul, wanting more than he was willing to give in order to spare her. "It's nothing. I promise. Nothing that you should worry about."

He counted the slow seconds that passed by until she glanced away and sighed. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"You're not going to ask me where I'm going?"

"I should trust you. Don't tempt me."

Something warmed him on the inside; the domesticity that she wore like a veil. A veil of beauty, but a veil of her own need to cloak what was underneath.

* * *

"Mrs. Wells?"

"Yes?"

"You called in about your husband."

"Oh thank god." She opened the door fully. "You're police?"

"No I'm Agent Jack Burgess, member of the FBI. May I come in?"

"Sure."

The tea was hot enough to scold, but he drank it out of courtesy. He could tell every piece of furniture and art in the house was her idea, the style was as intense as her tone and as ubiquitous as her sighing.

"Can you tell us anyone who might have had something against your husband? Against you?"

"No one. He was a good man. Well, he became one."

"How so?"

"When we married it shocked me at first that I wasn't the only Mrs. Wells, but later on I learned why. Those women thought he was abrasive and cruel but I knew he had to be. It was a part of his job and I was okay with that. They weren't. I understood him, they didn't. And everyone knows the more you get to know someone they become something others don't see. But they never had to change their view of the world, just you."

"What about his ex-wives? Have you ever met them?"

"One. His second wife, Paula."

"Did she ever share anything with you about Michael? Maybe somethings you didn't want to believe?"

"She suspected him of cheating. He'd disappear days at a time and come back just like nothing happened."

"Does that scenario sound familiar?"

"Michael has changed, and I don't hold his past against him. Now something is wrong, I know it is."

* * *

"Mivacurium chloride blocks neuromuscular transmission, messes with the acetylcholine in the body. Flaccid, but paralyzed nonetheless." Antonio examined Lydia's handiwork, not to mention the perfect sailor's knot she used to tie him up. "I'm surprised you're not comatose. Besides the rash at the injection site, you're fine."

"So I live." Michael said, not quite a question and not quite a celebratory chant.

"You continue to exist, yes."

"You're not going to let me out of this are you?"

"It's not up to me."

"I know what I did was wrong, alright. But I've been sorry for a long time--"

"Forgiving you isn't up to me either."

The stench was sweetly unique. It was something he had remembered from visiting his cousins, fresh off the Mariel boatlift, and the college life that didn't feel so far behind now. Lydia's body was halfway outside the bedroom window when Antonio caught her mid-haul.

"I guess I shouldn't ask where you got the reefer." The intruding voice startled her and bumped her head on the window sill.

"Damn." She watched the joint fall. "You were supposed to be watching To Catch A Predator in there."

"You tied his paralyzed limbs together...he's not going anywhere." Antonio cornered her in without moving a single inch. "So...I guess old habits never die."

"Everybody has those sleeping giants inside them, just takes a different tragedy than how you started to make you stop." Lydia took perfume and sprayed until the room was covered, till it smelled like the life she knew: forged.

"We're not talking about the same habit, are we?"

"Trust me, Mary Jane is the least of my worries, and she should be the least of yours too."

"You can't be mad at Nicole for telling you the truth."

"Oh but I can be. In my house, right under my nose he did that to her and she wouldn't say a damn thing."

"But you can't blame her for that, she was young, scared."

"I can. She used to give neighborhood boys black eyes for less. She was capable Antonio, she was and I just don't understand why she wouldn't fight back, why she didn't tell me."

"She didn't do either of those things because she thought you needed him more than you needed her. She didn't want you to have to be alone again."

Lydia forgot to breathe; the sensation to do so numbed her throat shut with things unsaid and memories that provoked them.

"More importantly, she didn't want to lose you."

"She told you that?"

"...Yeah."

Lydia lowered herself on the bed, feeling her heart sink deeper than the mattress would allow until it sprang back up into her chest with feelings she hadn't felt in a long time. "I'm a light sleeper...she knew that. _He_ knew that. The slightest cough I woulda opened my eyes. I would've been there Antonio I would've done something."

He sat down beside her. "You still have the chance to do that, to save her. But it can't be like this."

"I don't know any other way to be...that levee inside me broke a long time ago. I have no temperance, I have no patience, I have no idea what is going on and if I knew--if I truly knew..."

"You can't keep him in there forever."

"I can try."

"You know what's going to happen to you and you don't care?"

"Of course I care! But she never needed me Antonio, not once in her life. All I did was make things worse, and the proof is in my living room bound hand and foot."

"Nicole needs you now. So is this you getting back at her? By taking yourself away again?"

"I don't need you to shield me with your morals and your compassion Antonio. You're a good man and I know that. But I've never done right by good men; not by you, not by Sam, not by my own daddy." He heard Nicole ring clear in Lydia. Whether she could help it or not, she was her mother's daughter regardless and it made her independent and it made her tough. It made her broken and it made her skeptical but he knew it made her proud to belong to her. "It's a mean job, trying to protect me and Nicole at the same time, but you don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Mom."

"You shouldn't be here Antonio. I shouldn't have made you accountable for any of this. My problems aren't yours to solve, my live isn't yours to live."

"Well when I married Nicole I married into her past, future, and present. And you're a part of that, but I can't tell you what to do with your own regret."

* * *

"What are you doing?" Jack leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

Jess crossed out the weak connections she made on paper. "Trying to figure out my vision--Hey do you know anything about sea nymphs?"

"Like sirens?"

"Yeah."

"They were creatures with the heads of women and the body of birds, lived along the sea."

"Maybe that's what the anchor stands for."

"They lured sailors that passed by to their death by singing their songs."

"Maybe that's what the decapitated head was for."

"The what?" Jack laughed.

"In my vision. Do you think the wife has anything to do with this?"

"I think she's too naive to have to do with anything. But if you're getting visions then she isn't wrong: he's missing. I could've sworn it was just another case of a philanderer who got caught."

"Cause and effect. Maybe he cheated out of something heinous that happened between him and his wife."

"With a siren."

"Or, the wife is a siren."

"True, she said herself she changed him. Lured him in. But it just seems too easy. Why would she call attention to herself?"

"We've had cases like that before; woman plays the victim to get the sympathy and the ticket out.--"

"And I refuse to be fooled again Agent." Pollock stood at the door frame. "What've you got."

"A sea nymph." Jess answered.

Pollock moved closer with interest in her tone. "Which one exactly?" Jack's eyebrows knitted the same twisting thread as Jess'. "There are fifty."

"Fifty?"

"Poseidon had fifty daughters. Some are more popular than others." Jess rushed to the computer. "That's really unnecessary."

"Well we thought it was a siren."

"What exactly did you see Mastriani?"

Jack chimed in. "It was a woman on the water. She had an anchor in one hand and a severed head in the other."

Pollock took a minute to linger in his own knowledge, something he used to condemn Antonio for doing. But it just felt too good to let go of. "My roommate in college used to wear the crest around his neck: a woman, anchor in one hand, severed head of the savage in the other: _Gardez bien._"

"Sir?"

"Guard well: motto of the Scottish Clan Montgomery."

Michael felt the sensation slowly return to his fingers again as he moved them, blood circulating where it felt icy and numb.

"If that Antonio is a good man he'll turn you in."

Lydia scratched her inner wrist where Emmaus and her initials used to be tattooed long ago. It was a phantom of his memory that irritated her skin and felt too familiar in the situation of her sadism.

"And if you were a good man, you wouldn't be in this position, would you?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I don't care what happens to me, and I damn sure don't care what happens to you. I did this because it's not about you; because it's about me, and protecting what belongs to me. _Nicole_ belongs to me. And part of me wants to be strong and forgive you, be a decent mother. But the other part, the part that never had one of those..."

"Wants to kill me."

"Wants to watch you die like the animal you are. And I will. One way or another."


	18. Chapter 18

Sam Sparro's "Black & Gold" pulsated through the club; the lime green strobe lights darting across the room reminded Jess of a bad extasy trip. If this was Jack's idea of relaxation she never wanted to see how he partied. He did his best trying not to hear her rambling on about the case they left face-down at the office.

"There are two crests. Can you believe that? Two." Her body moved but her mind stayed on the same subject.

"Technically the second was a coat of arms but who keeps track of those details?"

"I mean, there is a man out there missing, and we're...here, that doesn't bother you?"

"For all we know he could be staking it out in some woman's bed trying to escape that looney wife of his. He's done it before, more than once. The man is a sex addict."

"Aren't most men?"

"I mean clinically so. I spoke with his second wife she said he was on Anafranil for it; it was quite obsessive-compulsive."

"And she was okay with that?"

"Did I not mention I was talking to wife number two, of three? Look, would you get your mind off this case and relax for once? We'll get Antonio to look into it."

"Antonio isn't a part of this. It's not his job--he can't help but so much.--"

Her eyes were glazed over and he could no longer see his reflection in them. Standing there with a dance partner as stiff as a 4x4 earned him looks from just about everyone.

Everything went blank and the scene was set. Jess opened the double doors to a wedding. Antonio was there dressed in his best suit standing at the altar. His pregnant bride was dressed all in black, a black feathery gown and a matching veil covering her entire face. He raised it up to kiss her and revealed that it was Lydia. Although it surprised Jess, the guests seemed unmoved. Her lips were fiery red, like a torch burning in the day time. When he kissed her, his face turned black and so did the rest of his body until he disintegrated into ash. She grew a tree out of his ashes. It was a weeping willow, where Michael Wells hung from the branches.

"Antonio."

"_Jack_."

"No, Antonio was in my vision. And Nicole's mother?"

"Ha, weird."

"No, not weird. It means they're...involved somehow."

"You mean they're sleeping together?"

"No I--I don't know I...this is..."

"Weird, like I said."

"Well maybe they stand for something else, some other people, some other idea."

"There's only one way to find out."

Her adamant phone calls went straight to voicemail. Although it hurt him to do that to someone he considered a little sister, he knew it was the only way he'd keep everything under wraps. True to his loyal nature he was sure to tell her what she wanted to know if she asked; there weren't that many ways to talk around the truth while maintaining the balance between friendship and family, between protecting Lydia and sheltering Nicole. The vibration weighed his pocket down with guilt and he covered it up by the revving engine of a 1967 Mustang.

Antonio only fixed things when he was too weary to face the world outside of his intellect. Even when they needed no tampering hands, he was determined to find fault and lose himself in the bolts and wrenches, the pliers and wires of it all. It was a quality she could easily read about him, walking in the garage in search of a box cutter to find him under the hood of the car trying to inspect the inconspicuous rattling noise.

Nicole slid her hands into his side pockets and he was immediately drawn back to Phoenix. "Do you want to tell me what this is about?"

"What do you mean?" He laughed, trying to put her female intuition aside.

"You get pretty technical when there's something you think you can't handle. Something that's not flesh and blood; because if it was we both know you could easily outsmart them."

"And here I was the one thinking I could see through you."

"I'm learning you, just like you learn me."

He wiped the car grease off his hands before facing her expression, daunting as a galactic black hole waiting to pull his soul from the core of him.

"It's true: I'm smarter than the car. I know the ins and outs of it, I know what makes it run and I know the chemicals that combust in the engine--it's science. And in science there's always an answer, and I can always find it. It's yes or no, it fits or it doesn't, it's burned out or it's brand new. I look at this car, and I can disassemble every particle of it, and I like that comfort. I lived my life with that same feeling; with the food I ate, with the women I dated--I needed security in knowing that I held every piece to the puzzle...but you..."

"Me what?"

"You challenged all of that. You are so much more than what could ever be blueprinted or calculated and classified--and it's frightening--and it's great--and I never know what to expect. I just, I want to help you, not hurt you. And I don't want to be penalized for it. I mean if we were always meant to know what was best we wouldn't have each other...because whenever we left the field, I never stopped being your second set of eyes."

He certified every thought she conjured about him at that moment. There was something between them, between the minute space that separated their bodies that he had been pondering on but could never get closure for.

"I know something's going on in your head. And you've been isolating yourself from me for reasons I don't understand and _that_ is what drives me crazy."

"I don't mean to."

"You do. You don't mean for me to feel that way, but you mean what you do."

"Well, I don't want to do that anymore."

"Then please, just...tell me the truth." Nicole got the same feeling she did when she revisited the shoebox they kept to find Byron's promise ring at the bottom. She knew Antonio had placed it there because she had never moved it from the jewelry box that housed it for twenty years; and he would never say so because he was intimidated by the memories she kept of him.

There was a weight of the whole situation on his shoulders simply for being a man in love with her and it was starting to bring him to his knees. "...It's about your mom."

Her eyes rolled like they had been for weeks at the mention of her. "Antonio, I'm through hearing about her. I really am. I said my peace and she chose her temper--and guess what? She's upset--she'll get over it. She always gets over it."

"That temper is part of you too, diluted or inflated, it's there. And just like it did then, it could still push her over that same edge."

Antonio turned back to the hood of the car, becoming annoyed with not being able to stop the noise.

"No." She turned his shoulder back towards her. "Why are you so concerned with her?"

"It's not about her, it's about the both of you."

"Care to explain?"

"I can't."

She folded her arms. "And why not?"

"It's complicated."

"I'm complicated."

"Which is exactly my point. Who knows what you'll do, or say, or think...or do."

"You _said_ that already." Her irritation was evident in her blatant emphasizing.

"I love you, and you know that. I could never lie to you, and you know that too. But it's not my place to tell you this, it's not even my place to be involved."

"I'm glad my ignorance is bliss for you."

"Nic,--"

She held up her hand and went back up the stairs. A piece of what he had to confess still hanging in the air, he closed the hood in defeat of both her and the engine.

"You know what," she stopped at the top step and looked down at him, "sometimes you get so caught up in having some _big_ problem, you forget how simple and small the solution can be." Nicole tossed him the breaker bar on the wall with more force than intended and expected, "...your timing chain is loose."

Janice rolled over into her husband's arms for what felt like the first time in a long time. There was no rigid suit, no starched collared shirt, just her skin against his. The tension in his shoulders never faded though; he was born with it and refused to let it go under her soft hands.

"What are you thinking about?"

"If I told you, you'd wish I hadn't."

"What? Are you missing your work-wife?" Janice poked fun at Nicole's absence from the office and his awkward calm. He was unresponsive to her joke.

"You shouldn't feel threatened by platonic relationships."

"I know." She kissed his neck. "I just wish you'd make me your everything. The platonic...the passionate."

"You are."

"I just don't want to feel left out of your life again, John."

"And you do know that part of my life is my work."

"And I don't want to hold that against you anymore. After all, those heroic tendencies are why I fell in love with you."

"Then I am grateful to those tendencies." He kissed her and was shaken by the beeping of his cellular.

Janice's lips spoke against his. "Go ahead."

"No."

Her eyes shot open. "Excuse me?"

"I'm going to humor you and be your husband for once."

Janice's laughter played with his sincerity. "John, you don't have to prove anything to me anymore. I know where your loyalties lie."

"Then allow them to lay here beside you."

She squinted at his solid expression, arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as if he heard nothing. "It could be serious."

"Could be." He was unmoved.

"Maybe Baltimore broke the case before you did."

He jumped for the cell phone before it could get to his cold and impersonal voicemail and scare them from trying again. Janice smiled in amusement.

"Pollock."

"Sir, it's Antonio."

"Wow, I thought puberty was a thing of the past for you."

"I mean, it's Jess." She felt flustered like never before with his personality. "I had another vision about Michael Wells, this time Antonio was in it...and Nicole's mother, Lydia."

"Details."

The package had been there for days from what she could recall. Why she never got around to slicing it open with her favorite box cutter escaped her. Like an agent she put the cold box to her ear and listened for any suspicious ticking, she smelled it for any chemical tracings but only caught a fading scent of sandalwood, vanilla, and one guilty cigarette. Once she opened it and the foam tumbled over, familiar glassy eyes stared back through a glass case. There was a note attached that read...

_She was in storage. I found a woman who could repair the water damage as best as humanly possible. I know he would've wanted you to have her again, especially now._

It was signed with an enormous cursive "L" that told more than was meant about how sorry she was, and how unfit she felt about being "Mom". At that moment she knew that Antonio was right, and that it had gone far enough. For the first time she touched her stomach and felt the weight of being the third generation of an upcoming four, filled with strong and impetuous women whose choices, good or bad, molded them and placed them in the fire to become someone's rock or footstool. She held the doll in her arms and kissed its head just like she did when she was small.

"Maman Brigitte. Goddess of Death and Fertility." Jack announced with a shiver down his spine.

"So in my vision Lydia was pregnant with Nicole."

"She's of Celtic origin, passed on to the Caribbean by deported indentured servants from Europe. She is also symbolized by a black rooster..."

"The feathers." Jess added trying to fight the curdling sensation in her stomach.

"This deity is a Iwa known for her strong use of obscenities, and for drinking rum laced with hot peppers, so hot, that if someone is not possessed by a Iwa, it's unbearable to drink."

"The red lips." She sighed dropping her head in her hands. "I can't believe this. What do either of them have to do with this case?"

Pollock entered with his usual flare and put down Lydia's file. "Lydia Brock. Then again that isn't the original surname. Her father wanted her to have her mother's: Montgomery."

"Like the crest."

"Like the county as well. Maryland. Just off the Potomac River."

"The anchor."

"She lives there: Peppertree Farm Apartments, Weeping Willow Drive."

"Peppers, tree, the black rooster--wha--so she's who we're looking for?"

"And Cortez knows this as well. Which is why this is one case he hasn't offered his help on--he knows how you have to connect when you interpret visions."

"What about Nicole? Does she know?"

She stood at her mother's door with the same anticipating feeling when they met after twenty-two years. The doll was tucked tightly in her arms as she knocked hesitantly. If she didn't try today she never would have in the future; it was just the way she was made.

The door opened and her mother looked at her as if she had seen her for the first time.

"Hi." Nicole initiated a long overdue conversation with simple words. "I got your package."

Lydia blew the stray hair out of her face and sniffed, drumming her nails on the door post.

"Look, I'm sorry. For not telling you now, for not telling you then...I'm sorry." The drumming sound grew intolerable to her ears until she slammed her hand on top her mother's. "You can't be mad at me. Not over this."

She looked down at the doll in Nicole's arm. "I'm not mad at you, baby." Nicole put her hand down. "I'm mad at myself. The one promise I couldn't keep was being able to protect you. If I wasn't wasted or high out of my mind, I was screwed stupid. And you got to believe me when I say I never, ever, wanted anything or anyone to come between you and me. You were always first."

Nicole smiled and it felt like forever since she had. It was redemption and it was what she needed to hear so badly in all her life without her mother. "Now that that's behind us, I've been craving your rice and gravy like a mad woman." Nicole let herself in despite her mother's spontaneous stuttering.

The once burly man stood in front of her feeble and paling. She recognized his eyes, though the redness she once remembered wasn't there. Through the sparse gray beard she recalled who he used to be. And he knew who she was, the look, with that same fear she had extinguished for years.

Her doll dropped to the ground.

_The sheets were pulled away and in came the wind from the open window, followed by his finger tracing from her knee to her ankle. His hand stopped there and grabbed, pulling her out of bed onto the floor. When she finally opened her eyes her wrists were pinned down by his rough hands. The cold metal of the gun he held pressed against her palm, daring her to try him, was tempting enough for her to wrap her fingers around the barrel and squeeze. Every sight, every sound was heightened of that moment; each breath he made was like the heavy panting of a bull, making her the red flag trapped under his hooves. His voice, the smell of him, the feel of him, it all came rushing back to her now..._


	19. Chapter 19

The raven black lochs fell to the tile and surrounded his feet. Antonio smiled in the mirror as the clippers found its way around his head, imagining the look on Nicole's face when he revealed his buzz cut. Having lived enough of life he had realized that the less things he held on to, the better, even if it was a trivial as shaving his head. He could hear his mother ranting on in his ears complaining about how he had become too Americanized with liberties and choices she and his father never had. Looking at him lately no one could have ever figured that he had survived living his young life in Washington Heights, fending for his sisters and overcompensating in his studies for the sake of his mother who spoke no English. Although now that she knew how, she never stopped nagging. He figured this was the least he could do to show his independence from it all and start again. Cut all ties that bound him to things he couldn't change. It was his emancipation.

"I must admit we are looking forward to you further supervising with us Agent Cortez; this should be a smooth transition from the FBI to TSA. With your resume we were surprised you haven't thought about working for NASA."

Antonio laughed along with him, although that was an opening he considered. His new boss took less getting used to than he expected. "Yeah well, I hope it's not too smooth a transition. Part of the reason I left the bureau was for something different."

"Well you're sure to find it here. We're expecting great things from you. Pollock spoke very highly of your work ethic and talents. He said nobody is more fit."

"Ha, must have been hard for him." His phone rang and it was insisted that he answer. "It can wait."

"No need to impress me Agent Cortez, you've got the job. But I think you've gotten so used to the tight reigns you don't know when you've got a little freedom." He patted him on the shoulder and left him with his new badge.

Antonio hesitantly complied. "What."

"How'd you like my recommendation?" Pollock's voice was like a dart in his side; hearing it after so long could only mean one thing.

"I'd thank you, but I know you have your reasons."

"I believe we have some unfinished business Cortez."

"I don't think I know what you mean, Sir."

"You know where he is, and you know why. But why you haven't considered telling your team is beyond me."

"You're not my team, not anymore."

"You can't protect some people from themselves. It's a lost cause and you know that. You can get out of this blameless if-"

Antonio laughed. "So you're trying to cut me a deal like I'm some kind of a criminal?"

"You know as well as I do you can be charged, but with Mastriani as our only in to your involvement it can easily be erased. But I want the facts."

"I did nothing wrong, those are the facts."

"When we try and maintain balance Cortez, we only end up tipping the scale."

"Spoken from experience?"

"Spoken from the heart. Yes, I have one of those."

"...I did all that I could, alright? If it wasn't for me Lydia would still be shooting him up with miv..."

"With what?"

"Nothing."

"Cortez-"

"Look, you know where to go and you know who to look for. If it wasn't so obvious you wouldn't have called so...don't make this any harder than it already is for me. Please."

"Turn around."

Antonio's eyebrows plunged in confusion. "What?" He looked behind him and searched the crowd until he could see Pollock in the distance, grey amongst the lively and colorful.

"You owe this team one last spin. And if you can't ride this out for your loyalty to this team, then the least you can do is pretend that you are the man you left behind in D.C."

"...Maybe I'm not that man anymore."

"Or, maybe you're just afraid to be."

Lydia's voice was like a high frequency pitch ringing in Nicole's ear; her world had gone silent until she could hear her own heartbeat, the opening and closing of each valve and the spark of every neuron attacking her brain. She could recall the last words Michael said before storming out of her life for what she believed would be forever; the door slamming, the profanity, the intimidation- all in attempt to make her mother feel responsible for his leaving when it was his own guilt and fear pushing him out the door.

Now every small step he made toward her tugged at her nerves. She could feel the fight or flight response in her system battling it out with no clear winner.

"You've...truly grown into a very beautiful woman, Nicole."

There was no response, not that he expected one, but an unfaltering stare she had telling him everything he needed to know and some things he'd be better off not discovering.

"I know that I'm the last person you want to see, the last voice you want to hear...and I honestly don't know what to say to change your mind about me." Her eyes followed him, lowering with his timid attempt at picking up the doll baby she dropped. "I just, I wish I could give you a reason to forgive me."

_"You told, didn't you?" Michael grabbed her arm and threw her against the wall._

_"I didn't say shit." She pulled away._

_"Watch your mouth."_

_"Who are you to tell me anything?"_

_"I'm the man who can send you to finishing school for that tart-ass mouth of yours."_

_"Been there, done that, got the curtsey to prove it. You can't do anything."_

_He grabbed her face in reaction to her attitude and bruising of his oversized ego._

_"I thought you didn't hit girls."_

_"You're not a girl Nicole, not anymore. So that means no more happily ever afters, and it means you can't keep waiting around for your mother to save you- because she won't. Shit, I taught you an invaluable lesson. I just hate it that you had to learn the hard way."_

Lydia touched Nicole's arm but it was far too lax for her to be satisfied with making contact. "Baby, I know this may seem a little crazy- and I know you may not understand it now but-"

"Are you trying to hurt me?"

Lydia was surprised at how quickly her emotions flooded to her face and the slow tightening of her biceps. "What?"

"I said, are you trying to _hurt_ me." The growl in her voice and the cut of her eyes in her direction tested Lydia's intentions. "As if it wasn't enough the first time."

"Nikki he-"

"I trusted you, with something we both knew you wouldn't be able to handle and you do this? What am I? Some kind of fucking psychotic case experiment for you?"

"Now you know that's not true."

"Then why is he here- why are you here?" She looked at him through her own eyes, not one of a child with nothing to gain and everything to hide. Michael had recognized that same intensity in her when she was younger, only now it had matured and the weight of her tone and the arch of her eyebrow made him feel smaller by the second.

"I think you know we have a score to settle.-" Nicole yanked the handle of her gun from the back of her jeans and pointed the barrel square at him. "I didn't mean it like that I-I just meant-"

"In all my life, I thought some things would just never happen to me. Like seeing you again."

"Nicole I...don't expect you to believe me when I say that I am deeply, painfully sorry, about the man that I was back then. Your mother she, she made sure of that."

His slight laughter didn't throw her off one bit or shift the barrel of her gun one inch.

"Look, I fucked up. I was wrong in so many ways, and I was stupid, and sick. I guess now I figure my not being able to give my wife the one thing she wants is nature's own way of reminding me just how wrong and wrong I was. Nicole I'm sorry."

She could feel her mother's eyes on her, coaching from the sidelines but refused it. "Regardless of how much I wanted you to suffer...I could never bring myself to hate you...much less, blame you." Nicole put the gun down by her side, allowing everyone in the room a little space to breathe again. "After all, it's not your fault you got away with it, right?" He looked down. "So, no, you don't deserve to die. Then again you don't deserve to live either."

For that split second Nicole enojyed watching Michael's spirit plummet into a hole hundreds of feet deep.

"But what you do deserve, is a little purgatory."

Jess picked her head up off the table after getting an awkward feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she looked up and saw Jack she decided to pin it on his presence for a good laugh but knew it was something more.

"I've been reading Montgomery's file all day and I'm not surprised that she would do something like this with a record like hers. You know, there was even a case when she was seven."

"For what?"

"Stabbing a teacher in the hand with a #2 pencil. It was dismissed without prejudice but never picked up again."

"I still can't believe she has anything to do with this case. For the amount of time that I've known Lydia she always likes to keep to herself: you don't bother her, she won't bother you."

"A lot of people with complicated pasts are that way; if they acted the troubled part people would only see them for what they were, not who they're trying to be. Laying low is one of the greatest defense mechanisms Jess."

"Everyone, you know Agent Cortez?" Pollock entered the bullpen with Antonio in tow.

"Wow. I thought I did." Jess said seeing his haircut.

"Jess I'm so-"

"No. I understand. I didn't at first, but, now I do. You've got obligations-"

"But my obligations should never become obstacles for any of you. I was trying to protect my family and in turn, I hurt them and my friends. So, I'm here because I don't know what the right thing is anymore. I guess sometimes when you try and play too many roles, you forget who you were to begin with."

Lydia gently removed the gun from Nicole's loose hand, thankful that she allowed her to do so in that moment of tension.

"I know what you're trying to do, but I can't- _I won't_, let you go down for this. You've got way too much to live for. Too much to look forward to."

"And so do you," Nicole interjected, "but you've never seemed to notice." They watched Michael squirm on the floor, grabbing his leg while his blood began to pool on the hardwood. "If I don't clean that up it'll stain."

"I'll clean it."

"I shot him, not you."

"I should've, _not_ you."

"You don't decide that. He was never your problem to handle which is precisely why I never should've told you any of this in the first place."

Lydia grabbed Nicole's wrist before she could walk off. "You are an extension of my life, and my love. You are a mirror to my past and a window to my future- that means your joy, your hurt...they will always belong to me even when you think it's just yours. Now that's the honest truth and I'm sorry, but your god-given strength just isn't strong enough to take that from me."

"Don't you have any idea what could happen to you for this? We both know the system doesn't give a damn about our story- about who we are, what we've been through together, or about our limits. They'll tear us apart all over again with no remorse and I won't let you guilt yourself into letting them just because you think you deserve this."

"There you go, trying to be the mother again. My god after all those years I missed would you just let me be one?"

"You can't be a mother to me behind bars, or a grandmother. You're no good to anyone there and I swear on my life, I won't let another generation be abandoned. I've been driven down that road before pedal to the metal and so have you."

Nicole sounded just like Emmaus' mother, and the feeling alone etched Lydia's skin with the scars no one could ever heal. She could never forget Emmaus translating words so cold it was like a cleansing water washing over her soul until it eroded her superficial fears away stingingly. Catalina fought for a life she had never met, though she knew Nicole was hers to love too. No matter how much she disdained the destructive relationship between her son and Lydia, she knew that a mother's heart was universal and even she was capable of following it.

Lydia folded her arms tight across her body to keep from buying into the juvenile trich habit she tried to leave in the past- the nervous hands that left hair by the clumps stuffed inside her pillowcase. "Nicole, I was trying to protect you.-"

"This is not you protecting me! This is you, giving up, because you don't know how to be okay with the way we are now. We don't have to fight anymore can't you see that? So if I can forgive this bastard for what he did to me...then so can you."

Antonio looked in the rearview mirror every three seconds at Pollock following closely behind them. Every turn he made, every brake he hit was mocked by him and shook his nerves to pieces.

"He's tailgating." Antonio whispered to what he thought was himself.

Jess would've normally cracked a joke but she knew his irritation came from a far deeper place than the rules of the road. "Everything is going to be alright."

He scoffed. "My mother-in-law could be doing time, that's not _alright _by any standard."

"Did you tell Nicole about this?"

"I tried, but now I'm the asshole because I can't come out and say _Hey! Your mom kidnapped the guy who sexually assaulted you as a kid!_"

Jess jolted forward but the seatbelt locked. "What?"

"She, never told you did she?"

"I mean I heard the story in a brief moment of sentiment but I never knew I...didn't know it was..."

"Him."

"_Him_. My god that explains a lot."

"Welcome to my world." Antonio made the turn onto Weeping Willow and sighed. "I feel like Benedict Arnold."

"You're not betraying anyone."

"Easily said from where you stand; you're the epitome of a diplomat."

Jess rolled her eyes in defense.

Pollock peeled off his sunglasses and hung them outside his pocket watching his agents finally came out of the vehicle. "I called off the tactical team; I wanted to make this matter as private as possible but, local PD are here." He announced.

"Is that your attempt at making us feel better?" Antonio jeered.

"You know as well as I do that there is nothing that can be done to make this situation any easier, for anyone." They both watched him check his gun though with hesitation.

"She's not trying to put up a fight.-"

"This is standard procedure, it always has been and you know that."

"No, no guns at all. No guns for anyone."

"No one's safety will be compromised and I say that on my honor."

Antonio turned to Jess to show his blatant _I told you so_ face.

Lydia stared him down as she put pressure on the gunshot wound, starting to push harder to make it hurt more than stop the bleeding.

"Mom. Stop it." Nicole could hear Michael's griping from the other room and it began grew bothersome to the ear. "We need something to wrap it with."

"I told you I have no bandages, and I refuse to rip up up my good sheets."

"No old rags?"

"A lady does not keep _rags_. Never mind, I got it." Lydia took a brief moment to put her hands on the neck of Michael's t-shirt and rip it down the middle.

"Hey!" He shouted.

"The damn thing came in a pack of five, get over it." He pouted like a baby as she wrapped the shirt around his leg tightly until he gritted his teeth and grunted.

"I guess I should thank you," he winced, "for not killing me, patching me up and all."

Nicole stopped at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall to listen.

"This is not my doing. It's Nicole's. She's the reason that bullet didn't go thru any vital organs, not me."

"...Because she's different, I can tell." Michael searched Lydia's face for a sour opposition but she wouldn't even give him the courtesy of looking in his eyes. "So that man, Antonio, is he her-"

"You know what? Stop talking. Stop acting like you did nothing wrong, and stop trying to play 'catch up' like you're some old friend - because you're not." She pulled on the ends of the knot one last time before leaving him on the floor.

"You know, you never realize how many people can be affected by one bad choice you make. Not until you get a bird's eye view...see just how far those ripples go."

Lydia turned around. "So you expect me to believe you got some goddamn epiphany? You are the same man!"

"And you're the same woman. A part of you is still behind bars; she's angry and she's vengeful, and she's guilty as ever."

"Well I'd rather be part crazy than a _complete_-"

There was a knock at the door, one that startled Lydia because all five of her senses were already on edge and she could see the flashing red and blue lights and hear the chattering outside the door.

"Ms. Montgomery?"

Pollock called through the closed door and Nicole's biggest fear moved to the front of her mind as it became more real by the second. She closed her eyes and tried to remember that happy memory her mother talked about; the only memory that should matter whenever the bad ones crept up.

"Ms. Montgomery I am John Pollock, Assistant Director of the FBI. May we come in?"

"_We_ huh?" Lydia laughed on her way to the door. She swung it wide open as if there wasn't a problem. "Good evening Pollock. Jessica. _Son_."

Antonio's eyes anchored to the ground.

"Nice cut."

"Ms. Montgomery-"

"_Mr_. Pollock, any Montgomery that ever lived has long since died." She respired. "_Brock_. If the government insists on knowing every little thing about me they should at least remember to keep my name on file."

"Apologies." He died a little inside for correcting himself in front of his people.

"Well don't just stand there. I was born with _some_ southern hospitality and it would be rude of me not to invite you in. But, no pigs allowed." She said looking over their shoulders at the police standing outside their cars.

"Ms. Brock-"

"Lydia is fine. Tea?"

"No thank you."

"Well then have a seat, all of you...you're making me nervous."

She sat in her leopard print chair and fit right into the animalistic and earthy decor like a queen on her throne. They were foreigners in her jungle, where both the fowls high above the canopy and the creatures slithering on the forest floor worshiped her. Lydia's expression matched the somber faces of the tribal masks and abstract sculptures she kept on proud display and it was unchanging until her spirit came back to her own body.

"I take it that I have been found out. I must say I never doubted Jessica for one minute." Michael was still and speechless as if he was a part of the rug she walked on. The fact that he wasn't screaming for help or looking at them in desperation was awkward enough to them. "Look I'm gonna let you know straight up, I'm not looking for a deal. Not for me anyways. I have no problem turning myself in and I could care less about the political bullshit that goes along with it- doesn't make me naive, doesn't make me slow- I just don't care about it."

Pollock could effortlessly see that Lydia was a woman fully knowledgeable of how the system worked. She had dealt with the two faces of the law on many occasions; both the crooked and straight. "So, what is it that you want exactly?"

"Immunity, for Nicole and Antonio. You do that, and I'll close my own cell behind me."

Pollock pondered the thought because it was one making rounds in his head already. "Alright...under one condition."

"What."

"You allow me one 'pig' inside, to take Mr. Wells to the hospital and treat him."

"Fine. One swine, but that's it."

She watched Michael limp off with one of his own and couldn't help but regret not doing more to stop them. Michael looked back at her and mouthed one last "I'm sorry" before leaving. It took everything inside her to shake it off and put her poker face back on.

"You give me what I want, and in turn, I give you what you need."

Lydia pulled open the drawer from her coffee table and placed the needle and Nicole's gun on top in a plastic bag. "I took the gun from Nicole's bag. My prints are all on it."

Antonio locked eyes with her and could see she was trying to tell him something, or hide it. Jess pretended like she didn't recognize the look, though it was one her partner used to give frequently.

"Now, will you promise me, Mr. Pollock, that they'll be okay?"

He looked at his own case, right before his eyes as if it were wrapped in a big red bow and put under his Christmas tree. "Yes...I promise."

"Then it's yours."

The flashing lights reflected off Nicole's face, red and blue back and forth, over and over as she sat in the hallway unmoved. Her back was glued against the wall and all she could do was listen to the heavy boots against the floor and the slow locking of handcuffs. She closed her eyes shut real tight once more, trying to escape it all, but only ending up with the same memories replaying because it was all too familiar.

_Here comes the sun little darlin', here comes the sun and I say, it's alright_

She sang the best she could trying to stop the child from crying while she got tugged at violently from her body, leaving her husband's blood smeared on the girl's clothes._  
_

_"No! Get your hands off her! Nikki!-" _The policeman tried to pull her off but Nicole's arms were locked around her mother's neck and refused to be broken as another man dragged her mother in the opposite direction. One by one her fingers scraped off Lydia's neck, taking skin with her under her nails. As the distance between them grew farther, her screams grew louder, and Lydia's song faded under her own sobbing behind a thick piece of glass.

_Here comes the sun little darlin', here comes the sun and I say, it's alright_

Ten years later she watched them put her in the same backseat from the cold and concrete curb. Nicole hugged herself because her mother couldn't possibly. Lydia promised she'd be back before they slammed the door shut but deep down she knew that it was just another lie, another song to lull her daughter's crying.

Antonio heard her even though she herself couldn't feel the tears come down her face or notice her body jerking from weeping. He got down and tried to hold onto someone who for the longest time believed she couldn't be held. No matter the circumstances or how much she wanted to be in the arms of another. And her grip was so tight he bled...and he loved her too much to notice.

_Here comes the sun little darlin', here comes the sun and I say, it's alright_


	20. Chapter 20

Pollock felt his wrist for a pulse; it had never been so slow in all his life, much less in all the years spent as a dedicated part of the FBI. He figured he was being haunted, by the phantoms of the past that stood outside his door and filled seats and left footprints everywhere. Jess contemplated making conversation as she watched him through the still blinds but knew it would be another cold reception. Jack touched her lower back and for once she didn't jump or protest her disinterest.

"You ready?"

"Yeah. One second."

Before she could get through the door he retired her intentions. "Mastriani I specifically said 'vacation'."

"I know Sir. I just wanted to check on you, see if you were okay."

"If things could go any more swimmingly, I'd be backstroking in the Atlantic."

She hesitated at leaving, knowing that sometimes he was as lonely and disturbed as he appeared.

"I...think I'll take some time off too." He said into his coffee mug.

"That's good Sir-"

"Indefinite time, agent."

"You haven't been evaluated again have you?" Jess's light laughter couldn't raise the corners of his mouth for anything.

"I just feel, things are getting a little out of control...for me. And the best way to get ahold of it again is to step back, and plan. I can't be that act in-the-moment man anymore. Once in a while you realize that somethings take time...effort as well, but, mostly time."

"To come back together."

"Or fall apart completely."

"Well, when things fall apart it makes it easier to have a new beginning; it's another chance at building something stronger."

He finally smiled, although it was brief and half-way. "Then I guess we have something to look forward to."

..._Then she woke up, and it was all a dream_. It was the ending she wanted so badly but was denied by the reality of looking down at her stomach and being able to tell how just many months had passed since her mother had been gone. With the development of her daughter came the maturity of her fear; the knowledge that she had helped Lydia abandon her by testifying and giving her lies truth. It put weight on a relationship that had just began to grow and snapped its arms like twigs. The only way out of her guilt was to give in to the irrational and distinct behaviors of nesting before she went insane; the constant cleaning and folding of every stitch of baby clothing, the wall washing, floor scrubbing and even the cooking of weeks worth of meals just to freeze them. Along with nesting came thoughts of family and home, and what it really meant to have either. In recent times she found her mother to be a liar, not that it surprised her because she knew the woman's story cover-to-cover and understood why. Lydia was a big sister to lives who didn't know she existed, and her mother was still alive in Beaufort; she was alive and remarried for the third time. And here Nicole was with paternal family she had never seen before, rebuilding their lives one natural disaster after another. With cousins spread across the Gulf like an infectious disease, Nicole seemed to be the only piece of family that broke free of the gravitational pull simply because her father wanted a better life for her; he wanted more opportunities, more better days, and more dreams for her to dream without society yanking them from her hands like they did his. Her grandmother had yet to see the States and vowed she never would deciding the most moving she would do was to cross the border to Puerto Plata and live with her younger sister. But all that hectic dispersion wasn't family, not to Nicole. Nicole had encountered family and tasted it on Antonio's lips, she saw it in Ethan's smile, she felt it turn over in her body and keep her up with thoughts like these. For a long time she thought that was all she needed, so she surrendered to Antonio's spur of the moment attitude about seeing his family because she knew a major part of her own had been snatched from under her feet and left her standing on shaky ground once again.

Nicole watched him with his dad's old acoustic as he played Michael Jackson's "Lady In My Life" by ear. It was a talent he had never told her about and with good reason; her whole existence and that of her mother sprang from a stigma of falling in love with a musician. It was in her blood although she had convinced herself it wasn't strong enough to manifest itself. But looking at Antonio's fingers dance she couldn't help but feel she had fallen victim to something inevitable. She called them "magic hands", hands that could strum a heavenly chord in her body so that they both sounded in perfect harmony, hands that could break the smallest things down to its essence and rebuild them better and stronger. The signs were always there and she felt like such a fool for not noticing the artistry in them before.

"You never told me you could play." The sound stopped echoing in its hollow shell as he looked up to see she was neither surprised nor fully knowledgeable of her discovery.

"I, was just fooling around." He laughed nervously and sat the guitar back in the corner but her stare never faltered. "Fine, alright. I can play."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't think it mattered."

"Well it matters to me."

"I know what you're worried about and it's not the case. There's no cycle no, curse. We love because...we just do." He caressed the back of her legs as she stood between his, pressing his lips against her stomach and getting an immediate rise out of the baby.

Yolanda watched them from the kitchen. The more she knew of her daughter-in-law the more she realized that she was more afraid of being hurt by Antonio than Yolanda could ever be of Nicole doing all the hurting. Although she tried her best to seem impermeable to Yolanda, she knew Nicole was so aware of her sensitivity that the only way to protect it was to be ten times stronger than it.

"I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"...An end."

"An end?"

"...To us." She said as if the idea was obvious. "I could never handle a divorce Antonio...not with you...and definitely not with a child involved."

"You know I won't let that happen."

"Then divorce can't be an option."

"It won't be."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

Nicole took his hands and locked their fingers together; her smile had faded and he knew it was because she was serious about it all. She was scared.

"I don't know what I'd do if someday I can't remember this feeling...how it feels to love you as much as I do now...and for there to come a time when it's not enough anymore."

"Don't say that."

"Look, my mom used to have the greatest memories about being with my father. He was passionate and kind and a great dad and they were inseparable for the longest. But with time...he changed. Antonio, I could change. You could change. What we feel, what we want- it could all just...change."

_"B natural."_

_"What are you talking about? I'm fine."_

_"This," Lydia took her thin finger and pounded the key harshly over-and-over until it rang in his ear. "This is B natural. It's not a state of mind, it's a note- a note that you have been missing every time."_

_"I know how to play, Dee. And if I wanted to take orders from you I'd let you climb on t-"_

_"Don't, talk like that in front of Nicole." Lydia watched the toddler turn from the random book she was scribbling in to pay attention to her parents. "You wouldn't want some man talking to her like that when she grows up, would you?"_

_"Of course not. I'd snap every bone in his pencil neck."_

_"Then be a little more respectful of what the fuck you say around her." Lydia scolded him by slapping him in the back of the head and he took with a smile because he knew he was wrong._

_"Nicole. Manman ou, se tankou yon lyon lè li vin fache. Gade sou figi l' la."_

_"Yeah yeah whatever. She doesn't understand you one pinch more than I do- and I know you only speak that creole gibberish when you're talking about me." She straddled Emmaus on the piano bench and made out with his neck._

_"This makes you a hypocrite you know." He grabbed her jaw and kissed her, jealous of his neck getting all the affection._

_"Why?" She asked in between the ins and outs of his demanding tongue. "If she can see how we hurt each other, then it's only right to show her how we love."_

Sam sat down and looked at the woman he fell for now behind a thick piece of glass. He was surprised at how put together she appeared dispite the rough women around her. He had forgotten she had survived this scene too many times which only made her legendary, a veteran of the accused and the Queen of the Damned although her royal jewels put red marks on her wrists.

"You could've warned me that being with you would be the absolute hardest thing I'd ever do in my life."

"You wouldn't have believed me if I told you, so I saved my breath. How is she?"

"The last time I saw her she said she was fine."

"Of course she did, because she is."

"And how about you?"

"Whats it look like?"

He pretended not to hear her usual griping. "Mr. Pollock is working on getting you out-"

"I don't want him to do anything. You tell him that."

"Lydia you've been in here for almost 5 months. You withheld information from the court about what Wells had done in the first place and even when he wanted all charges dropped you put yourself in contempt of court- you have a bail set on you for half a million dollars- you need any and every help you can get."

"Statute of limitations, Mr. Know-It-All: Michael can't be charged with what he did which is why I took matters into my own hands. And as for Pollock, I don't need his help or his pity."

"This isn't about pity, Lydia. This is about your pride and your inability to do what's right."

"What's right?" She smiled and he didn't like it one bit. It tested him and that she was sure of. "You know, my late husband bought me the most beautiful charm bracelet once; it was shiny and sparkly and made the clearest chime. And he told me, that as long as I wore that bracelet...we would always be in love." Sam rolled his eyes knowing she was about to go somewhere where there was no return for either of them. "So I wore it, all the time, until one day I realized that, it wasn't about love. It was about tracking me down, hearing my every movement in the middle of the night just so he could stop me from leaving. And, I never wanted to feel that way again I never wanted to feel hopeless, trapped."

He scoffed. "And being behind bars again doesn't ring a bell?"

"This has nothing to do with jail but everything to do with you."

"What about me?"

"I can't do this anymore."

"Why? Because I'm not okay with you ruining your life?-"

"Because you're the bracelet!" The guards and inmates around her both went silent with her raised tone. "You rope me with your goddamn rules and morals and your _This is right!- This is wrong! This is what mothers do!- This is what criminals do!- This is what you did!- This is what you should've done! This is how you live your life!- This is how you ruin it!"_ He anticipated her inhale because her face was turning red as if every piece of her was boiling to the top. "I can't be myself because you think that self is something so horrible to be. But it's me. And just because you don't understand it, doesn't make it ruined- doesn't make _me_ ruined- it makes me, me. And I can't be anyone else...despite your charm, despite your sparkle."

Sam shook his head, unable to look her in the eye anymore.

"...So yeah, I'd rather have these cuffs around my wrist for the rest of my life, then to have my mind petrified by the fact that I did nothing. And if you can't deal with that, then you're free enough to walk out that door."

"You're making a mistake Lydia."

"The mistake is mine to make."

Nicole sat up in bed and debated whether or not she should wake him, long after her water had broke. She had heard of false alarms before but this felt too real to go back to sleep. The denial had come from it all not happening the way she had planned; her mother was supposed to be beside her holding her hand and telling her stories about the time when she was born, scaring her and making her feel comfortable at the same time. But Lydia wasn't there, and wouldn't be.

Antonio reached over and felt for her, only to wonder how her legs got where her body used to be.

He yawned confirming that it was indeed 3am and she was propped up as if the sun was shining. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"Water broke." The nonchalant way she said it, on the wind of a sigh of boredom, only made him that much more concerned.

"The baby's coming? Now?"

"Hell if I know.- Do you know that it is absolutely 100 percent my fault that my mother's not here?"

"You know that's not true-"

"For once in my entire life I let someone else control what I think and what I say. I'm an honest person, wouldn't you say so?"

"Nic."

"So it would only seem natural for me to tell the unabridged truth- but I didn't. I let her do this to me again over something not worth losing her over. It wasn't worth it- _he_ wasn't worth it."

"Nicole."

"She missed my first meaningless kiss, Antonio. And then she missed my first _real_ kiss, and the first time I fell in love. She missed me knock the living hell out of a girl in my first fight- and trust me, she wasn't just seeing stars, she was seeing the whole goddamn Milky Way and I would've _killed_ just to have that 'fighting is not the answer' talk with her...but I never got it, which explains a lot about me. And what's worse, here we are years later and she misses another milestone in my life because once again, she's not here!"

"Nicole." His calm in the midst of her frustration was more noticeable to her than getting on her level. "Have you had any contractions yet?"

"All night. Couldn't sleep. Why do you think I'm so upset?"

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Because I have an abnormally high tolerance for pain, you know that. I didn't think it hurt that bad. What's wrong?" She watched him shove clothes on his body in an intense manner that almost made him look possessed.

"You're having the baby."

"Of course I am. I was waiting for you to figure that out."

He kept his eyes on the road because looking at her would only distract him and make them both crash. Jess could sense his emotion far beyond the heightened symptoms of being love-stricken and dared to act on it by speaking a single world. Jack had his fears too, but no matter how deep he thought he had buried them behind his intellect and charisma Jess always had a way of shoveling to the bottom of it.

"So, school's out, where are we going?" Jack broke the silence and she was able to breathe easy.

"I only have visions of missing persons you know." She joked.

"I mean, us. As a couple."

"We're a couple?"

"Well I don't know. What does it take to be one of those anyway?"

"Time...patience."

"Check...check."

Jess smiled to the window. "Dates."

"We've had plenty."

"_Feelings_."

"Wow, had to take it there. The whole feelings thing, kinda hurts my inner macho."

"Well wouldn't that confession about the feelings of your inner macho negate the whole macho thing?"

"Tou-frickin'-ché. If I had a cigar I'd give you one."

"You know, if you weren't such a smart-ass all the time, you just might get somewhere with me."

"And of course by that scathing _somewhere_ you mean an ambiguous _anywhere,_ because after all, you only have visions of missing persons."

"Oh shove it."

"Shh, time and patience."

"I finally get you," Jess laughed, "the whole abrasive, insensitive thing...I get it now."

"What thing? There's no _thing_."

"This being forward facade you got going on here, would never stand a chance with any woman. And even _you_ know that. But the question is why."

"Haha, you're crazy.-"

"It's because you're afraid that if you were really yourself around me, feelings and all, you'd get rejected for the sweet, thoughtful, sentimental metrosexual man you really are." Jess smiled from excitement as she finished her sudden epiphany about Jack.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes." She reveled in satisfaction.

Jack stopped at the red light and kissed her, hard. She caught her hand from raising up to keep from coaxing him on with a soft touch. He pulled away just in time to make the green light and left her lips tingling.

"Now was that real Jack, or fake Jack?" He asked through a smile.

After having spent six grueling hours in labor Nicole was finally at peace holding their newborn baby girl in her tired arms; arms that naturally grew strong and steady once they placed her in them. Fallon: "Descended from a ruler", strong. She was finally there, finally outside of one world and into another and in such a short amount of time Nicole could tell that she was going to change their lives forever in ways unimaginable. Nicole kissed the palms of her tiny hands and there was no question as to whether or not the journey was worth it, whether she could ever feel such a connection to someone she had just met, and she did.

"If there was ever a time to believe in God, it wouldn't be in the middle of some world war or natural disaster..." Nicole put the inside of her tiny palms to her lips and kissed them, "it would be right now, looking at her."

Antonio knew she was speaking from a place she rarely ventured to inside if she ever brought up "Him". For a long time she thought both heaven and earth had forsaken her and the only way to survive was to be her own protector, own lover, own friend.

"I don't know who she's going to be, but I know that whatever it is, I wouldn't miss it for the world."

He accepted her into his arms knowing that it would be the last he would see his own child before his mother and sisters came barging in with anticipation. Nicole called them "banshees" because in moments of sentiment all they did was scream terms of endearment at ear-wrenching high frequency.

"She's beautiful." Antonio laughed, recognizing the familiar head full of hair from his own baby pictures.

Nicole kissed him and smiled. "You're welcome."

_Her kisses and hugs came from a guilty conscience for having been the one to postpone their bedtime routine because she felt her high come crashing down. She was so used to seeing Nicole wait for her wide-eyed and smiling that when she stopped waiting and went to sleep on her own it hurt a part of her deep inside that wanted to be more than a young mother...to be just, a mother._

_She touched her daughter's cheek with her clammy hand and watched her come alive like a little china doll._

_"Hey Nic-Nac." __The book Nicole chosen had fallen to the ground in her sleep and picking it up was half the battle for Lydia, seeing it was Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. _

_She sniffed from more than the effects of her coke habit and tried the best she could to get back into the better habit she started with her daughter. "Let me see those hands!"_

_Nicole raised them, palms facing Lydia so that she could count her fingers like she did every night._

_"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9? You only have 9 fingers. Who came in here and stole a finger while I was gone? I bet daddy did it."_

_Nicole laughed and it gave her a rise she never got from drugs. "No mommy. Look, I have 10. See?"_

_"Are you sure?"_

_"Uh huh."_

_"They all there?"_

_"Uh huh."_

_"What about your toes?"_

_She kicked the covers away._

_"You count them this time."_

_"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10."_

_"Ten toes, ten fingers right?"_

_"Yep."_

_"Eyes?__" Nicole batted them to show they were there. "How many of those do you have?"_

_"2."_

_"That's right." She pulled the covers back over her and watched Nicole slowly tire before her eyes. "Lips."_

_Nicole pursed them up and Lydia gave them a peck._

_"Well, I think it's safe to go to sleep now. You're all here, just the way I left you."_

_"Mommy next time can I go too?"_

_Lydia shuddered at the thought, taking it as a Mommy can I be like you? Can I do wrong even when I know it's right and feel sorry in the morning? _

_"Baby, sometimes mommy goes places where you can't go. Places that aren't for you." She fixed the hair on Nicole's baby doll, unable to look her daughter in the eye._

_"Like where?"_

_"Insane."_

_"Why can't I go to insane too?"_

_"Because only crazy people go there."_

_"You're crazy?"_

_"...Well, sometimes yes," she sighed, "which is why I want you to be super super good and always make mommy proud even when she goes to insane. Okay?"_

_"Okay."_

_"Because when she comes back from insane, and sees how proud you made her...she's not going to want to go anywhere else where you can't be by her side." She pinched Nicole's cheek. "You feel me?"_

_Nicole pinched hers back and smiled. "Feel you."_


	21. Chapter 21

A fish out of water was what she felt like; a simple goldfish taken out of its comfortable bowl and tossed into the deepest ocean to fend for itself against any and everything that ruled the deep dark depths. Being tortured and teased daily was supposed to grow her a "thick skin"; that's what her grandmother told her as she drowned Lydia's tears out with Billie Holiday. It wasn't until she walked home from school barefoot with stains of blood on the Sunday dress she wore on a Tuesday, that she took notice to the severity of Lydia's problems. Lydia felt deep down she couldn't survive that way, not with blue chalk dust on her hands, a satin bow in her hair, and innocence in her eyes. It was bad enough she thought she had conquered the tougher times back home watching her father board up their doors and windows while the steady glow from a raging fire marched across her face in the spot he forgot to cover. The constant reminder of how troubled she had been since she could remember gave her the ability to go back-and-forth between a hot cigarette to a cold flask like an endless game of tug-of-war. She was bruised far beyond the surface of her skin, scarred beyond the damage of coat hanger abortions yet powerful beyond her self-induced weakness. There wasn't a man in the world with pockets deep enough to make her settle down and it took no admitting to them when they already knew the type of person she had let herself become so effortlessly, against the pull of her talent, against the push of her sharp mind. It was just easier to be intelligently insane.

_The last time she walked in on her mother's bubble bath she was invisible, submerged under lukewarm water just waiting for her lungs to give out. If it wasn't for pulling her out when she did Nicole would've been motherless long before it was time. But today Lydia seemed normal to plain sight; perhaps because she hadn't been drinking or hanging around with her coke-head friends pushing their own misery and desperation into her veins more than the drugs. Her smile could always make her trials insignificant to a daughter that wondered how and why she kept bouncing back from the worst of times._

_"I know I never asked this, and it's probably too late but...I want to know with everything inside me what my child wants to be when she grows up." _

_She had finally posed a question that Nicole had considered a healthy one to ask. She didn't care if it was long overdue. __"I don't know. But I know I want it to help people."_

_Lydia attempted to smile, knowing that she had everything and nothing to do with her decision. "Well," she folded her arms over the side of the tub and laid her head there like the daydreaming little girl she used to be. "When I was your age, I wanted to be the greatest classical composer Detroit had ever seen."_

_She was used to getting looks like Nicole threw her at that moment. "Really?"_

_"God yes, I loved classical music! Bach, Chopin, Beethoven. And someday I wanted to make something as beautiful as they did, and call it my own."_

_"What happened?"_

_"You happened." Nicole felt her heart drop in fear of another good moment passing them by. Her insecurities about a broken relationship with her mother was as sensitive as the non-existent one she had with her father. "You happened, and you were beautiful...and I called you mine." She lifted Nicole's chin up to look her in the eye._

_"So, you settled for me."_

_"Baby, your daddy was my Beethoven; he was moody, just like him, and passionate and it was tragic and exciting for me. He was so brilliant, and even though he couldn't read music one bit he played with all his heart. And Beethoven? Once he grew deaf he cut the legs off his piano and set it on the floor so he could feel the vibrations of each key. Deaf and hot-headed, he still composed some of the greatest movements ever."_

_She smiled and pinched Nicole's cheek like she used to when she was small, trying not get emotional in front of her._

_"So baby, even if I don't act like it, even if it doesn't seem like I appreciate it...you're my masterpiece. And without you, I'm only human."_

Jess stared at her wedding picture in its new frame. If someone would have told her back then what she knew today, she would've denied it and continued on until she reached the bottom of a Long Island Ice Tea. Jack had surprised her in ways unimaginable and what he lacked in the complicated relationship as a boyfriend, he made up for as a supportive and caring husband. She couldn't recall a time when her mother had been so proud of her decisions or where Doug hadn't speculated she was being forced into a relationship by sharp objects. It all felt surreal when she thought back to the moment she first crossed the threshold of the office as the doe-eyed rookie, playing to the shadows too scared to make her own moves. Now she could say that all she had learned in passing through those halls had a part in shaping her from novice to a natural. From a pebble to a boulder, a boulder that had stood the test of time when she had seen many come and go with the rolling tide...including Pollock.

"Special Agent In Charge, huh?"

Jess turned to see Lydia standing at the doorway. Beyond the tousled hair and slow gate she seemed even more different, and she couldn't seem to put her finger on why until she stumbled stepped further into the light.

"I must've been gone a long time." Jess didn't respond in fear of seeming judgmental. "Do you, know why I'm here?"

"...I do, but you know it's a waste of time."

Lydia laughed even though she had no reason to. "I'll tell you what's a waste: buying a bottle of dark liquor when you know good and well if you take one sip, you go right back down to the gutter you crawled out of. _That's_ a waste."

"So you've been drinking..."

"Not yet."

"Ms. Montg..._Lydia_, you know I can't tell you where they are."

"I'm not asking you as Agent Mastriani, I'm asking you as Jessica."

"I know you mean well but Nicole is just trying to protect her family."

"I _am_ her family." She waited for Jess to say any different because in her hearts of hearts, she finally knew it was true. "If I stay away I make it easy for her to resent me. And I won't sit back and let the one thing I have left be the thing I lose forever. Because if I can't have my own child in my life, I might as well go back to the person I was before her."

She waited for her to squeeze a tear from her eye or let out a dramatic sigh but she didn't give her the satisfaction of being predictable. Lydia couldn't do any of those things because what she felt was as true as the sky is blue and the grass is green. What she knew at that moment was so much of a fact that she carried a flask in her purse just in case the answer would be no and she'd have to leave with nothing but herself.

Jess reached for a spare piece of paper and a pen. "This is her number. But that's as far as I go for you."

"You're a good friend to her, you know that?"

"I used to think so..." Lydia took the paper from her hand and Jess noticed marks on the inside of her forearm, "...now I'm not so sure."

Lydia pulled her arm back and smiled at Jess' wedding photo. "Cute couple."

She went home and sat in the place she once knew, the one that her daughter had kept up and continued to pay for because despite her anger and frustration with her...she was unable to let go. If there was something that they both carried inside it was the unique desire to cause suffering to those who pained them, but to show them mercy at the same time. Not out of restraint, but out of the need to have their own hurt be healed. She had come to realize they didn't keep the same number after calling, and that they didn't live in the same house after visiting. But what she did notice was the scrapbook, centered on the kitchen table like one big "Wish you were here" postcard with a tinge of spite. It read without words: _I left you this because you deserve to hold a piece of the life you missed...even if you can't see the whole puzzle for what it's worth_. There was no note inside, no letter, as if to say she had nothing to say. Or perhaps it was that she had way too much to say and didn't want to risk it sounding like a solid "goodbye". Lydia opened the book and emotions flooded to her, slowing rising until she could feel the pressure against her lungs. There was a beautiful black and white of their second wedding; Antonio and Nicole were frozen in a kiss that seemed to stop time in the present. For the first time she saw the face of her only grandchild; she saw all her birthdays and school pictures, all the holidays she spent on the lap of her _'buela, _and all the unforgettable moments she shared with the people she loved and knew. Lydia wondered what it would have sounded like to hear Fallon's voice whining for her after being denied what her parents wouldn't give, wondered what her favorite color was and what she liked to do for fun, wondered if the little girl could even spare enough love to give a single drop to someone like her.

Antonio placed the hollow cardboard box on the island counter after putting every morsel inside it away. "I found it in the trunk. It's been four years and now we're officially moved in."

"Oh, Brie called, she wanted to thank you for the gift. You know, the one I picked out because you decided you weren't going to give them anything?" Antonio's youngest sister Gabriella had just gotten married and Nicole knew it made him feel out of the picture as the go-to male figure in her life.

He kissed Nicole with the thanks he was too proud to say. "It's quiet. I take it the little person isn't back yet."

"She is. Knocked out in our bed. Kelly brought her home early since she was a little homesick."

Antonio started to massage her shoulders knowing it had been the farthest away Fallon had ever gone without her. "I'm proud of you mama eagle, letting our baby bird fly."

"This coming from a man who could put a tracking device the size of a poppyseed in her brain without me knowing."

He kissed her again because she was right.

"Mm, almost forgot..." Nicole pulled a letter out of the mail drawer and onto the counter. She had held onto it for weeks waiting for the right time. But it was easy to grow impatient when there seemed to be no right time.

"What's this?"

"Read it."

After skimming the first few lines he caught the gist of the entire page and didn't know the proper way to react. "D.C.?"

"They want me back."

"That's good right?"

"Well, it would be if they weren't trying to exploit us. They know just as good as any office that I vowed not to go back for the sake of this family. But my legacy makes me some kind of mythical creature to the bureau, and, I'm not in love with that legacy anymore."

"You'd be Assistant Director in no time, Nic. Section Chief is a big deal."

"So is being a mother." It didn't take much to notice that the time off the field had started to test the wall it put around Nicole and her heart. When she became a mother she made Fallon transparent; she could walk straight through and use the barrier Nicole built as her own protection, where Antonio greeted her there after having completed the climb of his life. "I chose this life for a reason: because we came to an agreement that our kids wouldn't live latchkey lives like we did growing up. Your mom worked two jobs and mine was just never there."

"And you know I love and respect that promise. But I don't want you to have to resent-"

"She's ours, Antonio. How can I resent you? Or her for that matter?"

"But if you take their offer-"

"I don't want it as bad as you think I do."

"You do. You're just afraid to admit it because you're scared it makes you a bad mother for wanting something else. But it doesn't. You're a protector and a teacher by nature, and passion like that can't be tamed by anyone or anything. Not even me, not even this."

_"You never drink that much, never."_

_Nicole mocked him while his back was turned, knowing this was more about him watching Landon feel her up on the dance floor with no reflex or remorse from her. Antonio was quite familiar with how she got with a few shots of tequila in her. And with the right song playing from every speaker he knew just to what extent she would go in such an environment: there was no extent. After all, it took remembering that when they met they were both tangled in complicated relationships that proved no match for what she wanted, if and when she wanted it._

_"Nic, you barely reacted to the gunfire, and if I wasn't there-"_

_"If you weren't there our cover would still be in tact and so would my shoe." She threw her broken heel down on the floor. "Now I have to make up some bullshit excuse that he won't believe."_

_"I saved you."_

_"No, your suspicion interfered with your job. I could've taken care of myself."_

_"You weren't even wearing a vest, or a wire for that matter. Any action I took was completely necessary to ensure the safety of a fellow agent."_

_"Oh please. You weren't being my contact, you were being a jealous lover who couldn't stand to see me with the enemy. My job is all I have, Antonio. It's all that's ever constant in my life and ten years from now, it's still going to be all I'll ever want. My job suits me...and I don't have to bend over backwards for it just to feel it's right."_

_Her venom stung him to paralysis. __"Is that how you feel? That I'm trying to change you?"_

_"I don't know what I think." She took off the necklace he gave her for her birthday days ago and tossed it on the nightstand. The fact that she wore it struck him as a conflictingly cruel and caring gesture._

_"Is it such a crime for me to want you to care about me the same way you care about your job?"_

_"I can't do that."_

_"You can't?"_

_"No."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because."_

_"Because what?"_

_"Because that's just not the way I love you."_

_He hesitated on his agitating questioning for one that he found sincere. "Then you admit it: you love me."_

_Nicole was right, his suspicions about her had clouded his vision to the point where it was difficult to see the obvious: if she didn't care she wouldn't have bothered holding onto him the way she did__. Her secrecy wasn't out of shame but greed: wanting him and wanting herself too. For the longest time work and play were mutually exclusive, but that night, when her complicated feelings started to meet the respect she harbored for a career she placed on a pedestal, at eye-level, she would be presented with a decision that she knew would wind up hurting him. As long as the two stayed separate she could operate in both worlds to the full extent of her passions, but once he forced them to collide at the expense of wondering where her loyalties truly lied...the scale grew unbalanced._

3 Months Later

Pollock had found that he kept more things of importance in his office than he did in his own home. Once he packed them up he realized how easy they could be stowed away when in the past it proved to be impossible; the hardest part had always been getting his foot out the door.

The meek secretary crossed the open floor to approach him.

"Do you need any help, sir?"

"Not so much with the obvious." He put the last empty picture frame in box and handed it off in her unexpecting hands.

"Okay? I guess I'll take care of this then?"

"Thanks." She backed out of the room almost knocking Janice over, as if her pallid gray suit longed to take her lively yellow sundress along with her.

"You ready, honey?"

"Almost. You know, attire like that would be suicide in Alaska."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his shoulder. "John, If you don't want to do this..."

"I finally remembered who my first love was Jan, please don't try and fight it after all the years it took for me to get to this place." He kissed her hand and untangled her body from his.

"Then look at it this way: at least the crime rate will be a lot lower there."

"Unless you count the trout to grizzly bear ratio." Her smile leaned into his until they became one. "I'll meet you in the car."

Jess took her call simply because she could. No one was hovering over her day and night or barking orders at her. It felt funny. Good, but funny. They laughed for what seemed to be the first time in forever. They had an awkward way about them that allowed them to disguise the year's worth of tension with humor about married life and change until someone addressed the unsaid. Nicole could feel it rising up to her throat threatening to stop her words before she could even mean them or take them back.

"I'm sorry Jess, for leaving the way I did. It was wrong but right all the same."

"If you hadn't have left I wouldn't have had the room the grow."

"I'm glad you see it that way."

"I heard you're headed this way sometime soon. We should get together before you head back to Pittsburg."

"I'm not going back."

"What? Why not?"

"Because this is home."

She could hear Nicole's voice in the same room and didn't hesitate to show how happy she was by giving her a hug that could last for years.

"It's so like you to never tell me anything- I haven't seen you in-"

"Forever, I know."

"Then you're back? For good?"

"For now."

Jess' purse buzzed and from the smile on her face Nicole already predicted what was coming next.

"I know that look," she sighed tunefully, "go ahead, we'll catch up another time."

"Promise?"

"I promise, Mrs. Burgess. Plus, I have a stop I need to make."

She picked her head up from the desk to exhaustingly correct the pronunciation of her name. Her new teacher had found out in a short period of time that she was going to be quite a hand-full for private school.

"Your father is here to pick you up."

It didn't take long for Fallon to snatch her bookbag up and run out the door.

Antonio lowered his back routinely for her to jump on it.

"Ugh, D.C. is so slow daddy. They even _talk_ slow." She elaborated on her point with a drawn out southern accent that somehow turned into the call of a seal.

"You'll get used to it, I promise." He laughed.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere you haven't been."

"Ooh, will I like it?"

"You might, you might not."

"Well will mommy be there?"

"Mom's busy."

"She went to take that job didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Then good for her."

Antonio smiled at her mature attributes as she got in the backseat.

"We're going to see Lydia aren't we?" She asked a question she knew the answer to because it was fun when people gave her less credit than she deserved.

"Why would you think that?"

"I thought we would sometime." Fallon took out her composition book and handed it to Antonio with an open page. She had created a list of specific things Nicole had told her over the years of what she should be aware of about her grandmother, of the things she would say and promise and what she could believe and what she shouldn't. "I wrote it down, so I could remember."

He shook his head. "Fal,-"

"I know: _she's family_. But what do I say?"

"You talk, just like you talk to everyone else you know."

"But I don't know her."

"You will."

"So do I have to call her 'grandma'?"

"Probably not; she's got a thing about her age."

"Does Mom know about this?"

"If she did, there wouldn't be a _this_."

Fallon shook her head. "Daddy, one of these days you're going to get in trouble with her."

"Ha, I wish it was only one day."

His blinds were open for once and light seemed to fill every corner of the room, from ceiling to floor. It was void of its history only to those who weren't apart of it. But even in its emptiness she could recall enough to fill it back up again.

"I smell you agent." He announced with his back still turned. "After all this time you haven't changed your scent."

Nicole took the liberty to enter since he didn't seem as bothered or upset as she imagined he'd be.

"You're good."

"That, and these halls are never silent...or their pencil-pushers."

"You're right. I heard you're Alaska bound."

"All the fishing I ever dreamed of and all the snow-capped mountains Janice can stand to see."

"I wish you the best, sir."

"As do I. There was no way I could've even considered leaving without knowing this seat will be in good hands."

"What?"

"What you needed to bag this job, I couldn't teach you; I didn't even have it my damn self. Now you may smell the same, but you've changed where it counts...you've changed where I was too stubborn to. From the day you walked off with that bleeding girl wrapped around you I knew that you could change this seat forever. Bring up a new breed who will stop at nothing to do what's right. So yes, there's love. I love what you have the power to change, love what you have the dignity to keep the same, and what you can do for agents like yourself and agents unlike you."

"Sir I-"

"If you prefer the term 'respect' I understand." He interjected mulling over how inappropriate it may have sounded.

"The letter."

"I know about the letter. I typed it. If I would've told you that this is why you should be where you are right now, you wouldn't have come. You'd second-guess yourself and what you're able to do for this job and I'd be forced to keep living a life that expired for me years ago."

"I can't."

"Then of course you could spend a few solid months as Section Chief but, then I'd make a few calls, and they'd make a few calls and...needless to say: I'd eventually get my way."

"I...don't think I'm ready.-"

"What's a mortal thought to the divine? That's why God made me second to him in omnipotence. Fourth if you count the Holy Trinity."

She finally smiled in his presence. "I almost started to miss your blasphemy."

"Agent, if you don't take this position, you'll be doing your entire life a disservice. You said you wanted to help people, right?"

Slowly she agreed, knowing the exact moments in her career when she admitted to it.

"Then don't give up that dream just yet."

* * *

**One more chapter guys. Can't wait. Just like I can't wait for Unbridled to put her last piece up. I'm going to get my MISSING peeps back up here to read it no matter what. I don't care if they have to read this on the JOB. Ha. They were always in love with your work and wanted more pieces from you. i can be reasonable however and settle for one last go. -BLFS-**


	22. Chapter 22

**College life is consuming...just so you know. But this is just a message to say that I have NOT forgotten this story and I never intend to take as long as I do. This is an update that the end chapter will be posted in two parts. So to be fair to you guys, I'd rather complete both parts so that I can post them together and you won't have to hate me for the lengthy period of time I'm prone to take in between posting a part one and part two. BOTH are coming soon, believe me. And I'm serious Unbridled. I have a whole gang of people waiting to hear from you! Much love, and apologies as well. Thank you for staying with me this long, I'd just rather have you hear from me and know I'm alive/writing than to have absolutely no idea as to what I am doing or if I even planned on continuing. Okay, I'm done now. See you soon!**

* * *

**BLFS**


	23. Chapter 23

Nicole bathed in the fountain of youth she called "yoga". After forty she was determined to never let it show even if it meant getting into something she used to think was for women who had nothing else better to do. With time, she had done a lot of things she said and thought she would never do, but the feeling alone could not be conveyed to those who inquired because it was far more complex than words. She let her body do the talking: bending and twisting into the abstract and abnormal because it was how she saw herself on the inside, but yet, not feeling the urgent need to be put back together again. She could smile although for a while she felt she had thrown her love-numbed body under a big catholic bus driven by Yolanda the day she agreed to renew their vows in front of a mass; it was the way that made Antonio happy even if he was too honorable to admit. But Nicole didn't mind this time around, not with Fallon present, giving her a chance to see the beauty in glorified love although she saw it in its modest workings every day.

"You could've told me that we'd be going to a class for contortionists." Jess stopped two feet away from the couch and fell out on the floor.

"Give it a few more weeks and your body will thank me. And so will Jack." Nicole said giving her a bottled water.

"As long as you don't go vegetarian, I'm down."

"Girl, I'm from the Midwest; I'm made of meat and potatoes."

"Speaking of meat and potatoes, I need the facts. What's this I hear about you wanting another baby?"

Nicole shrugged modestly, "Eh, maybe."

"I never thought I'd see the day."

"Neither would I but, it's life. Life _now_, anyways."

Jess looked around Nicole's house for the first time, remembering when her motto was to keep things "portable," courtesy of the life she led. Even with the opened cardboard boxes throughout the house, the smallest details like the photograph on the mantle made it evident she had nailed herself into the foundation, never to be uprooted by an anxiety she couldn't shake.

"Where's that picture from?"

Nicole turned around and was hit with the memory she hadn't journeyed to since placing the photograph there. Catalina's hair was fully white, tied back into a braid that was thicker than the circumference of her limbs. Her skin clung to the surreal bone structure of her face that proved God's blueprint for Nicole. She had learned that her grandmother was a fragile woman who spoke with an unbreakable confidence, even if she was confident in words that mixed dialects and languages together and didn't make any sense, with the Alzheimer's being secondary. Although she knew who Nicole was because she looked so much like her father, she mistook Fallon for her younger sister, Cecile, thinking nothing of having to be transported back in time for it to be true, or of Cecile being in the kitchen. The stories Lydia had often told about Catalina, via Emmaus, made it hard for Nicole to believe that such fire and strength came from a woman who seemed "not all there." Cecile said she had been that way ever since she came back to Puerto Plata after Emmaus left Les Cayes in a stubborn rage, and after the love of her life passed. Catalina had become absent-minded, with every degenerate disease in the book but a heart that refused to break and end her. Cecile said, the only reason she stayed alive this long was just to see that Nicole was okay. And when she did, she would finally give in to all that her body was telling her.

Nicole turned back around to keep from looking at the silent urn beside the picture. Jess knew she would've responded if she could. But she could see moments travel on her face until she pulled herself up from going too deep.

"What about that one on the left...with the three of you; you guys look happy."

She paused, sensing what it felt like then to hold Antonio's hand and see Fallon smile for hours on end. There was a wholeness to who she was even though she used to be frightened of becoming it. "It's from Florida. I remember because I was so terrified when Fallon got stung by a jellyfish...but she thought it was the coolest thing. It was horrifying for me. I wanted to go back in time and just save her from one less kind of pain she'd have to experience in life but...I couldn't." She attempted to pull up the layer of herself she felt shedding by smiling. "But they'll be more right? More stings, more cuts, more letdowns, more nights she can't sleep. And I'll be there."

Jess let the water soothe her throat before testing different waters of a subject she knew Nicole would never be ready for.

"Does that mean you're not taking Pollock's chair?"

She huffed. "That position wasn't mine to fill. And it will never be."

"He thought different."

"Jess, it's more complicated than you think. What always separated me from the greatest agents I've ever known has been my abilities and inabilities. I was better because I could forget I was human. I was better because I couldn't fit love and life into my agenda and it made everyone else expendable. I took the risks I did because I knew there was only one thing in the world strong enough to pull me back...and it was something I wasn't willing to do yet."

"...Would you still have saved her?"

Nicole's eyes needed to be reminded as she squinted.

"Raven. Would you have saved her if it was just yesterday."

She hesitated in answering, knowing the question was there to prove a point she didn't want to address. "Not for reasons fair to her. She deserved to be saved because it was the right thing, not because I burdened her with my maternal feelings. That night I fought to save a piece of myself, a piece of Kelly, a piece of the child I should have had a long time ago and it..." Nicole stopped.

"It what?"

"It reminded me that I'm expendable too."

"That's not true-"

"I'm not searching anymore, Jess. And I didn't say no to the job because I was influenced by Antonio- yes, I know people talk...and they lie. I've heard it; when I wasn't meant to hear it and other times just because they were bold enough to tell me to my face that I'm making a mistake- that I made a mistake marrying who I married and when I married and for why, and for choosing to have my baby instead of aborting and 'climbing up the ladder'." She saw the faces of those people flash in front of her and what used to make her cry, head on Antonio's lap in the middle of the night, now made her strong before it could ever make her angry. "Jess, I said no because I was tired of being torn into pieces and carried to so many lives and places far away that I could never get those pieces back even if I tried. Another case, another piece. Another accident, another piece. Another death, another piece." Nicole took a firm grasp of her emotions and spoke as soft as wisps of clouds. "Anything I have left, I just want to give to my daughter. Because no one deserves it more than her."

* * *

She rolled coasters off the coffee table until they were scattered across the floor and left her with idle hands. For a young girl in school uniform, she positioned herself on the sofa like a middle-aged man during football season; her heel kicked out and arms thrown over her stomach. She had a piece of her hair placed between her nose and upper lip like a mustache as she smelled its tart green apple scent. These were not characteristics of a child who had skipped a grade a year ago, nor was it the posture and poise of a young girl who had a love of dance ever since her grandmother put on West Side Story to lull her to sleep; instead all it did was excite her. This was a child who saw no need to impress or live up to any expectations because she knew what she owed Lydia, and what she didn't. She didn't owe her the facade of a perfect child to please her or make the situation seem more comfortable than what it was; she owed her the truth...however stubborn in silence...and in return, she hoped that Lydia would give her own honesties.

"Well," Lydia started a sentence she wasn't prepared to finish. Fallon gave her attention only with the shift of her eyes, making her stare into the seat of a child's soul that reflected clearly the life she had missed in hazel circles.

Fallon flexed her eyebrows with impatience. The longer she held the innocent position of her pursed lips against her nose, the more pretentious it appeared and the more it weakened a spirit that was fragile to begin with.

"I don't know what you want me to say, or even if you expect me to say anything but...whatever you want to know, whatever you wondered in all those years of not knowing me...I want to be the one to answer. I want to tell you everything."

Fallon looked like a part of the upholstery the way she sank further into it like a rag doll. All that her mother had hesitantly answered over time to appease her pressing questions was incarnate in front of her and offered its explanation. She finally sat up and crossed her legs, growing taller and adding another ten years to her physicality. Lydia anticipated her voice and was surprised to find that for such a delicate girl, her voice had a natural rasp. "You left us."

She felt the knife turn and vulnerability trickle down her body. "That wasn't what I wanted to happen but...it did, and I'm-"

"You're sorry. Mom says you're always sorry but never change.-"

"Do you believe everything your mother tells you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Fallon didn't expect their bickering to end as soon as it did. She was prepared to go further, cut deeper in the way she was taught never to speak, especially to her own blood.

"At least you can believe her. What I wanted more than anything was for your mother to believe me.-"

"Well she's tired of doing that now, and I am too." Fallon put the puzzled pieces of Lydia's face back together with an explanation of intelligent fury that mirrored what it meant to be a Scott-Cortez. "I waited for you and you never came. Every birthday, every holiday, every whatever. She said to act like you didn't exist but I always pretended you were watching me, and I hate that I did more hating that you weren't there. She'd say _The more you think about her, the more it's going to make you mad, Lonnie_ and _Lonnie, you're only hurting yourself, and I can't save you from your thoughts_. You weren't there for her, and you weren't there for me either."

Lydia's mind touched the invisible wound with her hands and looked at the shame that stained them. Her jaw tightened at the nine year old's blatant honesty and whether or not she had been that way since birth or just possessed the still unpolished manners of a youngster was a mystery to her; although, Fallon did strike her as a child aware of where and how her words hit...and used that ability accordingly.

"Well, I wish you could believe me. Because I never meant to hurt you, not even from a distance. I thought about how I should've been there. I thought about how much better of a mother yours was going to be to you than I was to her." The lump in her throat resisted the possibility of subsiding realizing that even in silence Fallon protested clearly. "I thought about who you'd be, every day, I swear. Because from the moment I knew there was a you, I loved you. And even if you don't believe me- even if you hate my guts...it doesn't mean I'll stop caring about you. I can't. So if you want to beat me up, if you want to scream at the top of your lungs just to feel free for the first time, then I want you to do it, baby. Because your mama never had that chance."

Her the values she was taught echoed in her head. Be nice. Be nice. She would have never talked to parents or Yolanda that way in fear of "la mirada asesina," as Antonio called it. It was a stare so fiery cold that whatever they had planned to come next, never got the chance to arrive because she responded too quickly. But Lydia was too unorthodox to be intimidating; she had never been prepared for being responsible for anyone but herself and it showed like a spotlight through the dark. She never had to be the disciplinarian, or the pacifier; she was always thrust into some ongoing scene of life, not knowing where to pick up, not knowing which role was right, which role was her.

"I don't want to hit you," Fallon said softly. Lydia heard Emmaus in her voice and it chilled her bones. "And I don't want to yell. I just want you to love me and not be scared of me or what I think."

"What makes you think I'm scared of you?"

"Because you haven't tried to touch me; you didn't hug me, you didn't pat my back or my head. I'm mad at you but you don't think you can do that stuff because I don't love you enough to let you...but I do...love you."

Lydia smiled. "Who taught you how to talk like that?"

"...Life. Books." She picked at her nails in annoyance because she had been asked that question all her life. "And my parents. My Aunt Kelly thinks we talk funny but my mom says she's just jealous because she has a limited vocabulary and that makes her predictable."

Lydia laughed at how her phrasing resembled that of a tape recorder that had wound back to a convenient spot and played. "Wow. You're just like your mother."

"Really? Because she says I'm like you."

She went silent, unsure of what the title entailed for the girl.

"...The good stuff though."

* * *

Antonio never forgot a face. It was his job. The smallest details that went under the superficial radar of the untrained eye were constantly clear to him. It screamed for his attention if he didn't give it willingly. He knew who this man was because of his stance, because of the distance across his back from shoulder-to-shoulder and when he turned around, the fire from years ago that had yet to extinguish in his eyes. He saw Byron and didn't know whether or not to make it known; the last time they saw each other it was over the casket of his only niece and nothing about him said grief more than it did revenge and pain. His fingers were bare and it told Antonio all he needed to know in a span of a second and whether or not he wanted it to be noticed was irrelevant once they made eye contact.

"Don't tell me..." Byron started, struggling to come out with the correct name. "Antonio. Antonio Cortez. Yeah I, remember."

"Byron." They shook hands and tangibly felt the tension between them both.

"So um...you and Legs still together?"

Antonio bit down on his lip in restraint and laughed. The way he asked, scratching his head as if he were inquiring about the score of a game he forgot to record pushed him. "I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Oh I, didn't mean to speak out of place it's just...shit happens you know. Sometimes it's shit we can't control."

"We're still together, Byron."

"Well, that's, that's good. That's real good I...didn't...-"

"...expect us to be. I know. What about you?"

"Vanessa left me a week after the funeral, Antonio," he said with accusing eyes. "She said I cared more about some ghost than I did her. That was my niece; it was like loosing the daughter I never had. Every since she was little I was there when my brother couldn't be. And now he still can't be there for her and I can't either."

"I'm sorry." Antonio apologized.

"You can't be sorry. Not unless you know what it feels like."

"Well, I've been through a divorce before. And no one's a stranger to losing someone they love."

Byron huffed with laughter. "You mean to tell me you were married before Nicole?" A smile finally pierced his face, "And how is she taking that?"

"She likes to think that she came first, and technically, she did, but, what can you say?" He saw the sheer amusement on Byron's face but chose to ignore it. "Shit happens, right?"

"That's right, shit does happen." He looked down at the single jute bracelet on Antonio's wrist as he checked the time. "DAD" was engraved on the metal plate and it put a bitter taste inhis mouth for more reasons than one. He wasn't a father because Vanessa didn't want kids, because he dated all the wrong women, and because Nicole told him no when he was truly ready.

"Nice bracelet," he said, reminded of the things Raven used to make and leave all over the house.

"Yeah..." He stopped in finishing the sentence with a word that could change the direction of their emotions into an explosive discomfort.

"Your little girl."

Antonio felt his defenses rise automatically as a father, as a brother, and as a husband.

"Of course I'm just guessing but, I'm sure I'm right. You two have a daughter, around Raven's age."

"We both know that if I dig that hole the only person who won't be able to climb out is you."

Byron laughed, in one of those classic ways that tossed a veil over something deeper inside. "You've always been an honest one."

"Always."

He rubbed his chin before asking a question he wanted to know since meeting him years ago. "Does Nicole still have my ring?-"

"No."

"That was quick."

"Well...the truth never takes long to say. Lies do."

* * *

Lydia hated Imitation of Life with a passion. If she had it her way, her finger couldn't have hit the power button any faster, but Nicole had a project due and the only way to get through it was to bounce her knee up and down and press her knuckle to her teeth. She didn't get it, why it made her eyes well up with tears and her teeth grit seeing Sarah Jane collapsing over her mother's casket. It made her sick to her stomach, made her angry, made her hurt.

"Are you okay?" Nicole asked, gazing at the other end of the couch where Lydia seemed to have moved farther away.

"I'm good. Did you get what you needed from this thing?" She said through a muffling sound of her angry tears being wiped away on her sleeve.

"Basically. I don't see what this movie has to do with Black History Month though. There's only 'colored' character in the whole thing and she's too damn passive."

"Don't say colored."

"It's just a word."

"And it's a word that used to be carved on my desk at school." Nicole didn't say anything else. The kids at _her_ school teased each other with things they had the power to change if the bite stung enough. But the years between the two of them had set time at different standards.

"...What happened?" For a girl that knew so much her curiosity often came across as condescending, but this was genuine and it opened up a shell of a woman who had closed it for so long.

"I bounced between classes until my daddy just took me out of school completely...let the neighbors watch me, teach me what they could." She pushed the covers off of herself and went into the kitchen.

"Why?" Nicole turned to lean over the back of the couch, reminding Lydia that she couldn't walk away from her completely.

"Because I was too black for the whites and too white for the blacks. Either way I got teased to tears until..."

"Until what?"

"...Nothing."

"You promised there would be no men and no secrets between us anymore...I thought you meant it."

Her words gripped Lydia's heart until she gave in. "Until I took matters into my own hands...like I always do when I've had enough." She said the last part under her breath and Nicole was thankful.

"Then you won't be here long." Nicole left her declaration in mid-air as she turned back around.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Something else is going to take you away from me; I know it. And I'll be alone, again."

"So you don't believe in me anymore? Wasn't it you who said I could do better? _Be_ better?"

"I can't change you Mom. No one can. I don't even think you can change yourself."

* * *

**Thanksgiving.**

_Time's moving so fast_  
_Or is it me who stops the clock and lets the moments pass?_  
_My mind, says time's a friend_  
_There's so many things about you I don't understand_  
_And there's so much for me to know_  
_I've got so very far to go_  
_And it seems that, one life just is not enough_  
_To do the things to find myself, and keep my mind in touch_  
_But one life is all I've got,_  
_To accentuate my optimism, eliminate my doubt._  
_Can't be unsure of what I feel,_  
_Must have directions, good vibrations_  
_I've got to know what makes life real_  
_Really real_  
_I just feel_  
_Love is for real-_

"Coke Ni-Cola."

Hearing an old college nickname pulled her out of the arms of The Five Stairsteps, surprised to find that it was her sister-in-law. "Hey Brie."

"It smells so good sis." Gabriela said putting a piece of carved ham to her lips. "You know I'd help, but Yolanda doesn't trust me in the kitchen half as much as she trusts you and Mari."

"How is Mariel anyway?"

"Preg-a-nant."

"Really?"

"Yeah, her doctor wouldn't even let her take the flight here but she and the kids send their love and their congratulations."

"Oh god, even she knows?"

"Everybody knows. How is Fallon taking it? I know when Mari and Antonio found out they were going to have a younger half-sister they flipped shit."

"Well she's excited about being a big sister, ready to boss somebody around."

"Is it a girl or boy?"

"Boys."

Gabriela's jaw dropped like everyone else she had encountered. "What?"

"Yeah, twins."

"You're freaking kidding me.- How?"

"Do I really need to explain?" Nicole laughed.

"I mean I know _how_, but?"

"I'm 44, I'm black, I'm 5'7"- which is taller than the average woman- and since I got off the pill my hormones went all Octomom."

"Antonio must be glowing."

"He is; I promised to meet him half way and it just so happens that meant 3/4 of the way."

"Well I'm happy for you big sis." She kissed Nicole on the cheek and proved she was the only person who made rubbing her pregnant stomach okay. "I'm gonna run to the store and get some cigs, you want anything?"

"I'm okay, but can you find my child and tell her I said come get her stuff out of the kitchen?"

"You got it- ooh, hey girl," Gabriela said passing Kelly on her way out.

She dropped her bags on the kitchen floor, collapsed into a chair. Nicole knew that Kelly would have left Chicago more often if she wasn't deathly afraid of being miles up in the air, but

Nicole couldn't always lend her hand to hold.

"Where's my nephew?"

"Uh, excuse me, I'm doing just fine thanks. Where's my niece?" Kelly retorted.

"Somewhere beating up on her cousins. Now, where is he?"

"At home."

"What?"

"He was invited to spend Thanksgiving with his girlfriend's family."

"And he took it?"

"The boy has needs."

"If that need can't be baked, bagged, and placed on the table...he doesn't need it."

"He's _eighteen_."

"You know the only reason you talk like that is because you have a son, right?"

"I know," Kelly said smiling, "the grass really is greener over here...and soon you will know."

"Auntie Kelly!" Fallon ran into the kitchen and catapulted herself onto her lap, squeezing air out of her lungs.

"Hi honey. I hear you're still dancing even though your mother can't stand it." Kelly looked at Nicole with agitating eyes and a smile. Everyone knew she'd rather have Fallon shoot birds with a BB gun in her spare time.

"She's coming around. Aren't you, ma?"

"_I am_." Nicole answered to Kelly rather than Fallon.

"Well your father sent me the video of the regionals in Charlotte and you were phenomenal sweetie. I'm so proud of you."

Nicole looked over her shoulder. "If you blow that girl's head up any more she will pop and shoot air to the walls."

"Mom, that's not true! I'm _humble_."

"Lonnie, people who are humble never say so; learn that lesson now." She titled Fallon's head back before pecking her on the forehead. "Now get your bags out of my kitchen."

"Speaking of bags," Kelly sighed, "I need to put these up before they get heavier than my eyes."

"Straight upstairs, second door on the right.- Fallon will show you."

Even with her back turned Nicole recognized that one familiar presence was replaced by another. She turned to see Antonio come in, clearly broken down from having to deal with the rush at the airport since morning time. She didn't ask what went wrong or why he wasn't home earlier, she just pulled him into her body and caressed the back of his neck. He sighed with guilt, remembering the moment he said he would always be there when she needed him and felt her receive the apology in the way that she held him. He never meant to do it, put that turning feeling in her stomach, to have he vulnerability of loving him be stretched from her heart to wherever he took the other end. To be co-dependent waiting at that middle mark.

He started up into her neck, "..I-"

"Don't." She stopped him, feeling the old Nicole rise up inside of her just to be put back in her place as she looked into his eyes. "I know what you're going to say before you even say it and I've already forgiven you. So, no more of it."

He let it go knowing the history of their arguments always started with pressing an issue the other was ready to let go. "Did you tell anyone about Atlanta?"

"No. I can't bring myself to sit at a table where everyone is giving thanks for family and announce that a part of theirs is going to be further away than before."

"I know they said they can hold the position for as long as I need but if you don't want me to take it,-"

"You know me better than that; I can't and I won't do that to you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth just to discover that it's round and make the same trip all over again, but only if you promise this family will always come first."

"We do, we always do."

"...Then let's go."

She shrugged her shoulders as if she were talking about the movement from one room to another. It was easy for Antonio to forget that the agent inside her had never vanished, it only expanded to cover them all under its wing. Everyday she was on a mission to love him more than she ever thought she could, to throw herself into what they stood for wholeheartedly and never give up on it. When he thought he had figured her out she kept him guessing without even trying and that undying spark only ignited flames inside him.

"Did you ever think that this would be us?" he asked in how pleasantly surprised life made him.

"No. Never. And if someone would have told me, I wouldn't be here to live it. I probably would've killed myself."

"Ha, you would not."

"I would've." He saw it in her face: truth, and a shame to admitting having felt so hopeless before, for knowing just how much love used to scare her to unbelievable measures. "For the sake of regaining control, I would've, so I'm glad it took meeting you just to realize that it's okay to let go of the wheel sometimes. You go along for the ride to open your eyes and find that you're finally where you were trying get to, but didn't know what that place would be or how to get there because you were _so_ angry you couldn't see straight...even though all the signs were there."

A stranger opened the door when she thought her knock went unanswered. She immediately felt submerged into a world where breathing became impossible, moving slowly above ground yet feeling under water. She was no stranger to being infamous, but eyes bore into her like hot coals for no reason. It blackened her lungs more than a cigarette ever could and made her sweat. She looked around like a lost puppy between the hustle and bustle of a holiday in a home; she never had one of those and the sights and smells shocked her almost to disgust. Everyone knew everyone else and it made her think if each of them had caulked shut the spot in Nicole's life that she left vacant for her. And when it seemed no creature there would give her the courtesy of affection, there was one. She made her way across the room with a confident purpose that defied the speed of light.

"I'm Yolanda Jimenez." She interfered with Lydia's personal space as only a latina woman could.

"...I'm-"

"I know who you are; Fallon told me she invited you to talk to Nicole and I think it's long overdue, and probably redundant, but...needed, and noble."

Lydia took the bite and let it slide down her throat like cold medicine, taking the slow process towards healing. "I take it Nicole doesn't know I'm here."

"She doesn't."

"And when she sees me, she'll want me gone."

"No she won't."

"She always does. She fights me like no other and I'm just not strong enough to keep up anymore."

Yolanda smiled, having heard many stories about who the woman before her was in her efforts to get closer to Nicole over time, to become a new mother, a different one...not a replacement. It was in talking to her, in peeling back the layers one-by-one, that she found love for her that transcended the mandatory relations of being an in-law; Nicole was hers to love too and she didn't take it lightly. "Lydia, if you say you're going to fail...then why try? Why come here?"

She didn't have an answer but loose thoughts that leaked from her lips. "I don't know...used to it I guess."

"No one runs a race with the goal being to lose, Lydia. Sure there is hope in the winner but, there is just as much in the one that finishes last...if not more. Despite how weak their legs felt, despite seeing person after person pass them by...something pushed them over that line like everyone else. And _that_, is why you're here...you've yet to finish."

* * *

**Part 2 coming soon. On second thought, I realized sometimes it is good to make people wait (maybe not as long as I HAVE been making you wait). But it's the art of being a writer and a daily explorer of oneself.**


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